Valour Guardians 6: The Charm, The Duck and The Red X
by typhoonboom08
Summary: Charmcaster remembers everything and is determined not to let the Guardians reform. Targeting Jake and getting Danny in the process, her attempts to destroy them end up sending all three to another world, one with a familiar face for a king and problems of their own. Meanwhile, things aren't going well back home either as Dark Dragon continues with phase two of his own dark plan
1. Chapter 1

**AN:** Wow, it's been over a year since VG5 was finished. hehe, insert really sheepish smile here. I am very sorry to anyone who's been waiting. I already have written four chapters to this and will put one up once a week. Hopefully by then, chapters 5 and 6 are done at least.

Well, let's go. This one introduces some new reoccurring characters. I hope everyone likes the choices.

**Disclaimer:** As usual, I don't own any of the characters, shows or games involved in this series, only the chain of events.

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**Chapter 1**

"What an amazing city this is. I've never seen one quite like it." Mr Long, much to the amusement and annoyance of his family, had barely stopped once all day. The family had seen more sights of the marvellous city known as Hong Kong in one day then they'd even known existed and he didn't look like he was stopping any time soon.

"Dear, maybe we should take a break." Mrs Long called wearily, wiping the sweat off of her forehead as she looked back at the others. As usual, Loa Shi looked fine, but Jake, Haley, Trixxie and Spud looked ready to collapse. Foo had already flopped.

"But we've got another five sights to see before sunset." Mr Long whined, pouting like a child as he turned back to them.

"And at this rate, we won't even make it to one of them." His wife retorted, waving her arm back towards the kids for emphasis just as Spud joined Foo on the ground with a thump. "I think we've had enough for one day. Especially if you want to see the Fentons' demonstration this evening."

"But, but, but..." Mr Long stuttered, looking miserably from one tired face to the next, lingering on Haley's before looking to his shrugging father in law. Not seeing anyone coming to his aid, he sighed in defeat as his wife and the kids sighed in relief before trudging along to a near cafe.

"Don't worry Daddy. We're going to be here for two weeks. You'll have plenty of time to see everything." Haley reminded him sweetly as she jumped into his arms and making him smile. Even when she was exhausted she was daddy's chipper little angel.

"Besides, seeing Danny Phantom is more than worth it Papa Dog." Trixxie added as she and Jake pulled Spud to his feet. "I mean, what are the chances that he and the Fentons would be demonstrating their new inventions in CHINA of all places at the same time we're visiting? We never even saw any demonstrations from him back home."

"I can't wait." Spud grinned, plopping into a seat as they entered the building right before Loa Shi set down Foo. "Phantom's like the greatest hero in the world. I can't wait to see him in action."

"No kidding. He's great." Jake smiled before it turned into a smirk as he leaned in close to his friends. "Though I'd love to see if he really is the greatest hero in the world. I bet I could take him."

"Yeah right Jakey." Trixxie shook her head, thoroughly amused. "The guy can turn invisible, phase through anything solid and shoots green beams from his hands. And even if you manage to find a way around all that, how do you expect your reptilian butt to handle his deep freeze? You're cold blooded."

"And when he clones himself, he and all of his clones are almost at full strength. When you do it, the more power you give the clone, the weaker you get until you reabsorb it." Spud added helpfully. "And normally you make them disappear instantly anyway because you embarrass yourself by not giving them clothes."

"Ok, ok, I get it." Jake cried, blushing darkly as Trixxie and Haley laughed, burying his head in his arms. "I don't stand a chance. Can we just drop it?"

"Drop what Jake-a-roo?" Mr Long asked, already back to his overly chipper state as he set a few sodas down, before them.

"Nothing Dad, just-"

"Laughing over Jake's frequent pants problem." Haley interrupted, earning a glare from her big brother. "Considering how often he loses them in public, you'd think he'd be immune to the embarrassment by now. Or at least would have bought less embarrassing boxers."

"Haley!" His face was as red as his jacket, though whether it was out of anger or embarrassment was anyone's guess as all the other kids laughed again. Even Foo and Mrs Long couldn't help chuckling subtly while a small, amused smile crossed Loa Shi's face.

"You know Jake, we had a great invention that made that problem completely disappear back in my day." Mr Long said, merrily throwing an arm around his son's shoulders as he sat down. "It was called a belt. I know that they're really outdated, but I'm sure we could find one in any of those antique stores, as you call them."

_Um yeah, except how I lose my pants can't be stopped with a belt._ Jake thought snappishly, choosing not to comment out loud. Feeling thoroughly humiliated, he ignored everyone around him completely and pretended the people snickering at nearby tables were laughing at their own conversations and not his misfortune as he gulped down his drink. He loved them, but sometimes he wished he could just get some time as far away from his family and friends as possible. Like when they felt the need to mortify him in public. And especially when there were two beautiful Chinese girls one table over that couldn't be more obvious about their amusement over what they'd just overheard.

"It could always be worse kid." Foo whispered at his side, though he couldn't stop his body from jerking with contained laughter. "That Phantom guy once had pictures of himself clad in nothing but his underwear making the front page of the newspaper three times in one week. Thank your lack of fame in the non-magical world that that hasn't happened to you yet. Oh wait, you ended up in the Magic Weekly magazine in that hilarious picture dancing without pants didn't you? Well, at least it didn't happen three times."

Oh yeah, he _needed_ to get away from these people. If this kept going much longer, they were going to embarrass him to death.

...

The moment Gohan touched down on the shiny, white floor, he knew something was off. The Earth's Lookout was a place where the air of serenity was almost constant. Truth be told, since his father died at the hands of Garlic Jr's mind controlled servants, Gohan had come to rely on it. His family was still so unsure of how to function, how to adjust to Goku's absence that small arguments, crying and unnecessary panic attacks had become commonplace in his home. Getting away from his mother and brother and coming to this calm, tranquil place was nothing short of bliss in the young Saiyan hybrid's opinion and the only place that he could safely experiment his new Super Saiyan powers without Vegeta demanding how he'd gotten them, a question he wasn't entirely sure of the answer to, guessing that it happened when he found out about his father's death without his notice, or his mother's panic attack's hitting critical levels.

Now however, the worry and confusion of the place's inhabitants washed over him in waves. It left the teen tensing for a fight, reaching out as far as he could with his senses. This sort of feeling only dominated the sanctuary of the Guardian of the Earth when something was very wrong.

However, the more he focused, the more confused he got over the feeling's presence. The Lookout was a mystical place, from there those with the power to sense could track any source of energy in the world, regardless of how limited their ability was or how weak their target's signal could be. But nothing felt any different from usual. Yeah, there was a fair bit of energy passing his senses with dark intent, but in a world like theirs, that was an eternal constant. It wasn't worth worry that much about, especially since the concentrations of good energy always overlapped it.

"Piccolo?" He called, having enough. He wasn't going to find the problem on his own. He might as well just ask the source. Finding his former mentor's energy signature within a second, he lifted back into the air and flew inside the temple-like structure in the middle of the Lookout, almost instantly appearing by the green, slightly insectoid being floating near a small fountain in a meditative position. "Hey Piccolo. Something bothering you?" He asked mildly, raising a questioning eyebrow.

"Hey kid." Piccolo ignored the look completely as he opened his eyes, giving the young hero the gentle smile reserved only for him. "Don't worry about it too much. I'm sure I'm just overreacting."

"Yeah, like that happens much." Gohan retorted, rolling his eyes exasperatedly. "Normally you don't even get involved until half of us are banged up good and you and Popo alone have never managed to disrupt the serenity of this place all by yourselves before. What is going on?" He added again, this time a little more forcefully.

"Stubborn as your mother." Piccolo chuckled, looking over the worried kid with amusement before dropping to his feet on the ground. "If you must know, an enormous concentration of magical energy has gathered in Hong Kong."

"Huh? Magical energy?" Raising an eyebrow, Gohan focused his senses to Hong Kong only to find absolutely nothing special. "I don't sense anything."

"You wouldn't. Magic is a very different type of energy from what we use and detect. You need magic to detect it." Piccolo replied as he led Gohan back out to the trees Mr Popo was watering. "I'm only able to detect it because of Kami. Even though he's fused with me now and no longer holds the post, becoming a Guardian of Earth comes with some permanent advantages."

"So magic truly exists huh?" That fascinated Gohan. He'd always thought magic was just a thing of fairytales. Besides the Dragon balls of course, but they were long gone, turning to stone when Kami fused with Piccolo. But to actually know that there were people out there using magic, well he really wanted to meet...

His thoughts were cut off right there as something seemed to snap at the back of his head and in that moment his eyes turned unseeing. Flashes of memories almost appearing to fast through his mind for him to make out consumed his vision. The first showed him a figure in red and white robes holding up a glowing necklace and unleashing wind and lightning from it before the image switched to a shadow that looked like a dragon breathing fire, to a feminine figure in a blue cape made everything around her glow blue and levitate with a wave of her hands to a masculine figure with glowing pink eyes releasing a tornado of the same coloured energy from his hand before finishing with a pair surrounded in blindingly white light, the girl creating a ball of purple and white light on the tips of her daggers and the boy swinging a pair of glowing swords that looked strangely like keys.

The images disappeared as quick as they came, leaving Gohan completely perplexed. They felt like memories, but he couldn't figure out for the life of him where they came from. He felt like he should though, like each of those 'magic users' should be important to him, but he shrugged it off. He could worry about that later.

"So what's so bad about this gathering? Is it that dangerous?" He asked, trying to get back on track.

Piccolo had no doubt noticed Gohan getting lost in thought, but, much to Gohan's relief, chose to ignore it. "Only to the owners' enemies." He smirked, his face warping into a look Gohan often saw on the battlefield when Piccolo was perfectly confident and revelling in the prospect of an easy victory. "The gathering is one of the breeds of dragons that's scattered all around the world. This one is unique, born human and gaining their reptilian transformations and assorted powers at the time of puberty. Only two of their breed have turned evil in more than two millennia, the rest are guardians and protectors of the good magical creatures hidden from non-magical eyes all over the world. However, they originate from China. The first temple of their Order was built on a mountain in Hong Kong and is only accessible once every thousand years. The dragons are merely gathering for a ceremony they hold within its walls. With that teen ghost boy Danny Phantom there too, Hong Kong couldn't be safer than it is right now."

"Then why are you worried?" Gohan asked, thoroughly lost. It didn't sound like there was anything to worry about at all.

"Like I said, it's not really worth worrying about. It's just that within the multitude of dragon magic, there's something else. Something dark. Considering that it too is magical, it may be something following the dragons. Many wielders of dark magic would love to slay the dragons and all of them need the dragons out of their way. But with that many dragons around, the move would be an extremely foolish one. Even all the Z Fighters combined, despite the fact that we are all significantly stronger than any of the Dragon Order, would never be able to overpower that many dragons."

"But subtle tactics may be another story." Gohan didn't need Piccolo's telepathic abilities to know what he was thinking. He knew how Piccolo thought, what he knew, but wasn't saying. The Namekian was first and foremost a strategist and was very evil himself before Gohan changed him. He knew how to deal with such gathered power. He knew that when warriors were gathered and at their most powerful, they often at their most vulnerable. An army never expects an attack by anything small and a single, unseen enemy can eradicate them all.

"This dark presence is either a fool or a genius." Piccolo nodded. "Though even a subtle act is risky with creatures like dragons. Many are hundreds of years old, their wisdom as developed as their rather astounding senses. The only creatures out there I can think of that would even dare to attempt such an action would be the most powerful of spellcasters or the two evil dragons themselves."

"I think I'll go check this out." Gohan decided. He could use a little time away anyway and besides, he didn't want to leave this to chance. He may have been saying it was nothing, but Gohan knew Piccolo better than anyone. If it was enough to make Piccolo worried then it was a real problem. And besides, the last thing the world needed right now was to lose an actual army of protectors and peacekeepers. They probably could handle it, but it couldn't hurt to have a little backup just in case.

"Be careful Gohan." The Saiyan stopped a mere second before leaping off the edge as Piccolo called, an edge in his tone that only occurred when he felt Gohan was in real danger. "I know you can take care of yourself now, but be very cautious. Magic works very differently from Ki and you will be just as vulnerable to it as your mother is."

"Right." Nodding as he took that in, he gave Piccolo a serious look, hoping to reassure him before taking off, his white aura flashing to life before turning gold as he screamed. Smirking as the power his transformation granted him surged through every one of his muscles, he took off as fast as he could. He'd let Piccolo deal with informing his mother. He could do it from the Lookout and cut the connection before she started ranting, the lucky jerk. He didn't even have time to get more details about the temple's location or when it would be reveal. Even as a Super Saiyan, it was going to take time to reach Hong Kong from Japan.

_Not a problem though. Getting Piccolo to answer my mental calls is easier than picking up a phone._ He grinned as the blue, cloudy sky drew back enough for him to see the waves of the sea. After all, Piccolo's mind was always open to the Saiyan hybrid. The Nemakian had made sure of that long ago. After all, it would be rather ridiculous to leave a five year old alone in the wilderness with no developed survival training or control over his power. He had to know when the kid was in trouble didn't he?

...

Hong Kong was an enormous, ancient city, bearing one of the largest populations of people in the world. Its history had resulted in creating many unique places at multiple levels of altitude. Many locations were long abandoned and forgotten. Untold numbers of secret passages and underground chambers made the city perfect for those who did not want to be found. It was something that drove law enforcement insane. Between the places and more than seven million people, it was a perfect location for undesirable characters to conduct their business.

The city had also been the home of countless magical creatures, both good and evil, since its foundation. The Dragon Order arose from that very place. Sorcerers had considered it sacred ground, the Nexus of the magical ley lines crisscrossing throughout the city being easily the biggest and most powerful in all of Asia, possibly even the entire planet. Therefore, no one would ever notice the arrival of a few more, so long as no impressive magic was used, something one particular evil sorceress was quite happy to take advantage of.

Or rather, had been. Her patience was running thin by the time she found the deserted street she was looking for. Overly chipper tourists and poking toddlers was an excellent way to grate away at her nerves.

Pushing the windblown silver strands of hair out of her face, her eyes lit up with a light pink glow as she scanned the area, searching for what few others could see. It was as she turned her head to the left that she found it. The echoes of three essences, none of them human and all of them dark, leading into an old, rundown shack. Following them in, she walked right through the open doorway and kicked aside the most disgusting rug she'd ever seen to reveal a trapdoor. It glowed pink along with her hand and was wrenched up a moment later before she kept on her way down a dark, stone passage that probably wasn't much younger than the city itself, a ball of pink light floating before her and lighting the otherwise pitch black path. It was deemed useless and extinguished the moment she found the bottom of the stairs however, as a large room opened up before her, the walls lined with burning torches. However, it was the trio in the centre of the high ceilinged chamber that held her attention.

"Sorceress! You are late." The young spellcaster openly scowled as the sharp, strict voice of an older woman snapped at her as if scolding a child. She looked like she would make quite the intimidating grandmother, though her head had yet to gain even a single strand of grey. Her sharp face was cold and unimpressed as she stared at the teen before her, fingering a staff imbued with a large, purple crystal and what looked similar to small, torn purple wings on either side of it at the top. Personally, the sorceress thought she most resembled a vampire with her paled skin, gothic red and black dress and black and purple cape. However, she was far from intimidated.

"In case you're forgetting reptile, China is not my home and I couldn't teleport myself into Hong Kong without every witch, wizard and half your kind detecting my presence in the process. It takes time to travel undetected without wings of your own. Perhaps you would like to try it sometime?" She snapped back, her temper revealing itself more and more as she ranted.

"Now now girls, no need to have a go at each other." A monkey clad in yellow butted in before Chang could respond, jumping in between them. "We have plenty of time before the temple appears. There's nothing worth fighting over."

"Well said Bananas." The third figure rumbled, a smirk growing over his enormous mouth. This one was far bigger than his associates. He wouldn't fit in an average sized room. At least five times size of the rest of his kind, this was a terrifying dragon with black as night scales and dark, eerie blue horns, underbelly and V on his forehead. Even those who had never heard of him would fear this creature. He radiated with malicious power and dark intent. "Charmcaster. It is a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance, face to face."

"The feeling is mutual of course Dark Dragon." Charmcaster nodded respectfully. Even she, for all her rebelliousness and quick temper, knew to be nothing but respectful to this particular being. She held no fear whatsoever of any of the dragon races, however, this being was one of only two individual exceptions and was probably the more powerful of them. Certainly the more intelligent by far. He was the master of even the darkest aspects of magic. Someone not even the most fool-hearty would dare take on alone. "Has the boy been found yet?"

"Yes. The American Dragon is right within our reach, as is his grandfather. Other than his little sister, they have yet to make any contact with the other dragons. They can be taken at any time." Dark Dragon smirked, running his tongue over his teeth. "This little plan you've devised is a very interesting piece of work. The results could be taken in so many beneficial directions, which is why I have allowed it to replace my old plan for the Dragon Order. However, I must admit that I am curious. Why are you so intent on removing the American Dragon from the picture, especially if you have never met him?"

"A good question. One that does not have an easy answer." Charmcaster responded calmly, grabbing a candle from the wall and holding it up before her. Her hand glowed pink and a second later the flame grew dramatically in size and reshaped itself, forming complex, unpredictable patterns until it finalised into the outline of ten people, three girls, seven males. Some held weapons, one held a book, one raised a watch, while the others stood in offensive stances. The most notable of them was a dragon. "The world has been made to forget, but until not long ago, ten teenage heroes had become a team, uniting many groups of heroes around the world. Even without these outside team mates, this group was easily the most powerful force of good in the world. Incredibly dangerous to everyone on our side. Even you. The American Dragon was one of them."

"They were once well known? How has the world forgotten them?" Dark Dragon asked, his draconic face lightening with curiosity as Chang scowled at the implication of a threat to her master. "And more importantly, how do you remember?"

"It was done by a force of magic greater than anything I have ever seen. Even these heroes, the Valour Guardians, have no idea that they were once a team or even that most of them exist. It was only really quick thinking and dumb luck that I remember." Charmcaster admitted, clearly not liking how humbling that statement made her. "During the time of its occurrence, I was hiding in a pocket dimension of my own creation from creatures that were destroying everything alive, good or evil. I'd placed an enormous number of spells on it to shield me. When the spell was cast to make all forget, it was that, along with my gift to control magic, that allowed me to shield myself from it. Now, I'm determined to destroy the Guardians before they ever have the chance to reform and recreate the world they did before. Trust me, if that happens, your goals will be far harder to reach then you'd even imagine. The magical creatures, ghosts, the normal humans, they'd all be at least partially united."

"I see." The thought of a group of teenagers becoming such a threat would make most beings like himself laugh and declare the claims as the work of the stupid. However, the Dark Dragon knew that the American Dragon was one of the most powerful dragons in the world and he had explored the non-magical world in search of threats to his future rein. He knew of Danny Phantom, the powerful half ghost who was definitely one of the figures depicted in the flames. Kim Possible was a rather extraordinary fighter, especially for her age, capable of standing up to any of the Huntsclan. Powerful beings from other planets occasionally landed on Earth and there was an organisation known as the Plumbers that dealt with the more evil ones. Then of course, there was the remarkable magical children, from wizards to giants that kept appearing. If a group of them united, and had the connections Charmcaster suggested, then young or old, they would be quite the dangerous foe. "Then why have you chosen to deal with the dragon now? Is he the most powerful?"

"Hardly." Charmcaster snorted, surprising the Dark Dragon and causing their partners to stiffen. "In terms of muscle strength, he'd rank as fourth strongest. However, in terms of true power and dangerousness, he is well within the lesser half of the team."

"Then why him now?" Chang asked, her eyes burning with fury. Charmcaster smirked at that. Chang had been beaten by the dragon more than once and now he was deemed a weakling. It couldn't possibly sit well with her.

"Partly because even I stand no chance against the stronger members on my own." Charmcaster admitted, her smirk turning into a scowl. "One of them is the sorceress Gwen Tennyson and another is her cousin, Ben. Ben's lost the bulk of his power, a device that allowed him to turn into powerful aliens, but they are both the grandchildren of Verdona, the most powerful sorceress to exist in millennia. Gwen is highly skilled in the magical arts and a fair bit more powerful than me. She's beaten me plenty of times before. And Saiyaman, the leader of them, is powerful beyond belief. I'd never go after him without an army. Two are out of my reach and most of the others are always surrounded by other metahuman teens. The American Dragon and Kim Possible are the only ones really vulnerable at the moment and the dragon is the most powerful of them and the one that can unite the magical and non-magical worlds together. That's why I'm after him first. Besides, Danny Phantom's here too. After this is over, I may be able to find a moment to end him and threat of the living and ghostly planes uniting too." She added nonchalantly.

"All fair points. Now let us begin." Dark Dragon nodded, getting smirks from his partner and minions. A dark smile was growing on his face too. By the stroke of midnight, both of the powerful Long dragons would be dead, the Dragon Order would begin a wild goose chase and eventually turn on itself, creating the chaos that would give him everything that he needed.

The chamber rumbled as his roar-like laughter echoed off the walls. After all these decades, one new ally had brought his ultimate goal to but a stone's throw away.


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: **Welcome to this week's chapter of VG6.

Thanks everyone for the reviews. I'm really happy that some of the old crowd's still into this series. Every one had me smiling for quite a while. speaking of which...

Ultimate Black Ace: It was kinda mentioned that Kami was gone in VG5, though I can understand a little confusion there with the mention of him previously. The plans where it was first noticed got cut out and forgotten about in VG5, so my bad. As for the summary of DBZ you asked for, I'll put it up on my profile page, should be up by the next chapter update.

Baby Porcupine: I can't really answer most of your questions now because I don't wanna spoil the story. But since It's been so long a wait and you were the first to ask, I'll make a one time deal and say hint accepted. I'll put up details about how my Sora-Roxas-Ventus deal works on my profile page by the next update for you too, so it doesn't confuse you anymore.

Right, I think that was all the needed explanations for now. I won't hold anyone up any longer. Enjoy.

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**Chapter 2**

"Oh, I can't wait!" Jack Fenton's cheers were echoing off the walls as he ran all around the back of the bus. Each time his family saw him, the smile on his face was bigger, he was jumping around more and he had yet another three weapons in his overloaded hands. "Look at all those ghosts! And I thought LA was full of them!" He cried excitedly as he pointed to a giant screen on the wall at the end of the bus. It depicted a green tinted, overhead view of all of Hong Kong and bright green pictures of ghosts were dotted all over it.

"Well, LA is the biggest home of the world's broken dreams." Jazz commented lightly, not looking up from tinkering with her favourite ghost weapon, a rather impressive ecto bazooka. She'd long gotten over watching her overexcited father. It was more or less his same reaction to every major city the displays had brought them to, just at various degrees of excitement. After all, the more people around one area, the more likely some of them will be coming back as ghosts with any number of obsessions and unfinished business. "And Hong Kong's a very large and ancient city. It makes sense that there would be a lot."

"But remember honey, we're not here to wreak havoc on them." Maddie added firmly, bringing Jack to a halt. "We're here to show the public what's been used to protect them from nasty ghosts."

"And to teach them that not all ghosts deserve to be attacked." Danny added from the couch, eyeing both of his parents. "Some are perfectly peaceful. Let's make sure everyone keeps that in mind before they panic and attack every hint of ectoplasm that they see, _ok_?" He stated firmly, giving his father a particularly firm look. "I don't need you trying to blow up any of my friends. Again."

"Ok." Jack moaned and slumped his shoulders, effectively stripped of all enthusiasm. It made the ghost hybrid feel a little guilty as he watched his dad slump away, but it had to be done. Jack was still far too determined to drop into his old 'die ghost, die' routine. Last time his dad was left unchecked, he'd almost had to watch as Wolf was blow apart 'molecule by molecule'. Then he almost had to watch Wolf rip him apart limb from limb. Needless to say, Wolf hadn't been very impressed.

"You know, ghosts aren't the only things this town is full of." Jazz commented, finally satisfied with the bazooka and returning it to its smaller state before strapping it to her belt. "This city is said to be the sacred ground of ancient sorcerers and all different kinds of magic. They even say that in ancient times, dragons used to fly through the streets, terrorising whoever they found."

"Come on Jazz. You don't really believe that stuff, do you?" Danny asked teasingly. "Magic. It's just tricks and superstition."

"Oh, you mean like how I used to claim ghosts were only tricks and superstition?" Jazz retorted, smiling cheekily.

"Touché."

The bus pulled itself to a final halt a few moments later, ending any other debate as the family pulled out to find a small squad standing before them, bowing politely to each Fenton in turn. The Fentons were quick to return the gesture, though it became comical for anyone watching and embarrassing for the Fentons as the weight of the equipment in his arms made Jack tumble face first into the ground.

"Ow!" He groaned, slowly pulling himself to his feet as two of the men helped gather his toys. "Thanks fellas."

"It our pleasure to be of assistance Mr Fenton." The oldest one, a slightly grey haired man replied with a small smile. "Welcome to Hong Kong. We are honoured that the Great Danny Phantom and the world renowned experts on all things ghost have agreed to perform a demonstration for our city. Our people are very excited to see you and the inventions you bestowing on us to keep our more uncivilised ghosts in check."

"Aww shucks, I'm not that great." Danny blushed, running a hand through his hair. No matter how long it had been since the world discovered his secret, he still couldn't get used to all the attention and compliments. Heck, he still was overwhelmed by the fact that every major city in the world had a statue of him. It seemed like too much to him. Though he wasn't about to complain, it felt good to be respected and admired instead of just seen as another evil ghost to destroy.

"A modest hero." The man grinned amusedly. "That is good. Usually means you have a good head on your shoulders. But now, on to business. If you would be so kind as to follow me, I shall show you the stage for tonight's event and my team will help you set up everything you need."

"Thank you, Mr...oh dear, we never got your name." Maddie smiled apologetically as they followed him through the building.

"My apologies, where are my manner." The man grinned sheepishly as he turned back with another bow. "My name is Li Wong."

"Then thank you Mr Wong." Maddie nodded back before they continued on their way. It didn't take them long to get through the building, not that that surprised anyone. After all, the stage was a huge one and was outside. The building simply held a few storage rooms, a main room and a couple of dressing rooms before leading into the wings of the stage.

The stage on the other hand, left Danny and Jack gaping. It was the biggest one they'd ever seen. Not to mention the workers had gone all out on decorating it. Everything was covered in green and black and on the back wall was Danny's DP insignia in White while Fenton Works was painted in orange underneath it.

A pile of dummies was off to one side and tables were set up along each wall, one of which bearing head sets for each member of the family. Finally, three sheets of thick metal were piled up on the left side of the stage.

"Is there anything else you need us to provide for tonight?" Mr Wong asked as the family looked around, Jack already jumping up and down with excitement. "We believe we have everything on your list, but it was quite...small."

"That's because everything else we need is in the bus." Maddie informed him as her eyes swept over the area. "Now, first things first. We need to set up the portable ghost shield and ecto-converter. We don't want any stray fire hitting the audience after all. Then we'll set up all the weapons and targets."

"And get a leash for Dad." Jazz muttered, casually swinging an ecto-reinforced fishing line over her shoulder and snagging Jack as he tried to sneak off. "We've done this dance ten times already Dad. Knock it off."

"Sweetie, you've gotten so good with lassoes! We'll need to move you on to ecto machetes." Maddie exclaimed proudly, hugging her daughter. Danny just shook his head at his parents while Mr Wong and his men stared on confusedly.

"Just go with it." He sighed, turning to Mr Wong with a look of resignation. "This is a daily event."

Choosing just to nod, Mr Wong and his men simply moved to the weapons Jack had dropped again at his capture, picked them up and placed them on the tables Danny instructed. They'd done these demonstrations a few times already, so the ghost hybrid had a full understanding of all his parents' equipment and the routine Maddie used to reveal them. Weapons like swords and staffs and enhanced, everyday equipment were always placed on one table, guns, lasers and bazookas were placed on another, the third would hold gadgets looking like high tech accessories, like the filter phones, spectre deflector and laser bracelets and the last one was the location of the unconventional inventions, like the Fenton Ninetails, the Thermos, the Fenton Peeler and chemical compounds, both to heal and disrupt the bodies of ghosts.

It didn't take long to get the equipment unloaded. Flight and intangibility really sped up the process and the other Fentons could set up everything brought out. As such, Danny quickly grew pretty bored. He didn't need to practice the routine anymore, he knew it off by heart and the lines had been reused so much that they came easy. In short, there wasn't really anything for him to do once he supplied the ecto-converter with a sufficient amount of power.

_It's night back home, Sam, Tucker and Valerie are probably asleep._ He added with a sigh, flopping down on the edge of the stage as his parents put the dummies and metal sheets in place. That meant there was no point calling them. Or the few other people he really called friends either. Video games weren't all that fun on his own anymore and none of his family cared for them. Jack was an exception and would play with Danny a lot when he was stuck in the bus, but he wasn't what anyone would call good. More like an annoying disaster. And he shouted so much that he frequently gave Danny a migraine. So that was out too, and, not being one for books, that left only one source of entertainment left to him.

"I think I'm gonna go for a fly over the city." He announced, jumping to his feet.

"But don't you have to prepare for tonight?" Mr Wong asked, raising a curious eyebrow while his men stared at Danny blankly. He'd already determined that none of them spoke English though. Good thing his mother and sister were adept in four languages each, otherwise, this trip would have been one hell of a hassle once the country's translators went home.

"Nah, I know it by heart." He shook his head, heading back to the bus. "I'll sit around boredly if I stay and I wanna check out the city. Might as well see the greatest city of China."

"Ok sweetie. Just make sure you're back by sunset." Maddie called happily over her shoulder before flipping Jack over the other with so little concentration that you'd think that she was just brushing away dust. "Not you honey, you can't be trusted on your own and we still have setting up to do."

"Aaawww!" Jack pouted, staring at the ground. Danny just shook his head in a mix of amusement and annoyance as he left the stage. His father was never going to change.

Getting back to the bus, he jumped in, went straight to the closed off area holding his stuff and pulled what Jazz called his costume out of his suitcase.

He still couldn't quite remember what changed him so much. He had a few fleeting memories of an evil witch being involved, though it was more likely a ghost dressed like a witch, and that she'd been ripping his ghost and human halves apart before something got in the way and snapped them back together, but what little he could remember was too vague to get any understanding from it. But whatever happened, it had made his human and ghost forms fuse back together in a completely new way. Instead of having two forms, he now only had the one. His human form now had all the powers of his old Phantom form at full strength. He'd found plenty of advantages to that of course, now he didn't need to waste time and energy transforming and he was forever at full strength, as opposed to the old days when his human form held none of the durability, strength or raw power of his ghost half, but there were a few drawbacks too. Like how he couldn't get through the ghost shield at all anymore and his human half's immunity to the powers of the spectre deflector or the thermos. The other had been his wardrobe. No transformation meant that he didn't have the black jumpsuit appearing and repairing itself anymore. His parents still had plenty of the dominantly white suits his had originally been lying around, but they just didn't look right. Besides, truth be told, he'd had enough of spandex.

So instead, he'd had a heap of custom made clothes developed that his family had added to. It looked pretty similar to his old suit, black pants and a black long sleeved shirt with his symbol on his chest. The elastic collar was white, as was the hemline at the bottom and at the end of the sleeves and there was a white stripe going down the side of each arm and leg. His dad had thrown in a pair of black combat boots. Which, Danny had inspected thoroughly upon receiving them. Jack had wanted to place a lot of gadgets in them, but after Danny had talked to him, he'd settled on just one that Danny actually found that he liked. An ecto shockwave inducer. All he had to do was charge energy into them and whatever he kicked or stomped would be struck by the shockwave. The more power he put into it, the stronger the blow.

His mother had given him a pair of thin gauntlets. They were much more streamline than the Ghost Gauntlets, looking like those of a knight's as opposed to fist shaped blocks, but they were just as strong, increasing the strength of his punches and easily bocking even Maddie's strongest swings with her machete. Jazz had provided a grey utility belt that he wore over his untucked shirt. It was the thing that he appreciated most out of his gifts. His parents had each put their own touch into theirs, but Jazz had used every connection she could find to convince Capsule Corp, a Japanese company, to help her with it. It was a lot of painstaking work for her, but in the end, she'd had it developed so that each compartment on the belt was like the company's capsules, able to hold enormous things inside without him so much as feeling the weight, let alone the bulkiness of the usual method of carrying weapons. In addition, she'd had it reinforced to withstand the forces he was frequently exposed to while still keeping its weight barely noticeable. Not an easy feat.

He quickly changed, grinning as he snapped the belt on and grabbed the gauntlets. It was a lot more comfortable than his old spandex and a lot less revealing too. Clothes that leave nothing to the imagination really didn't work with shy, insecure guys like himself. He wouldn't even go shirtless at the pool.

Finishing up with tying his boots, he got up to leave and give the people of Hong Kong a sneak peek at the ghost hero when a stray hand knocked his bag and sent it to the floor, spewing out a number of video games. Sighing, he picked them up and shoved them all back in, but stopped short as he found a very specific device.

It was a rectangular device, the screen and keyboard hidden under a lid emblazoned with VG. He'd found in his room next to his computer the day after his powers had changed and still didn't have a clue as to what it was. He couldn't access it. He could turn it on, but it demanded an activation code and shut itself back down for an hour if you got it wrong even once. His parents had wanted to disassemble it and determine what it was, and Tucker had wanted to hack into it, but something refused to let him do it, that he knew that it was important and had to stay as it was. He quickly noticed that he was very sentimental towards it and when he stared at it long enough, he sometimes got faint images in his head, like memories, of using it to talk to someone he'd never met or looking up information. It was really confusing, but enough that he took it wherever he went and didn't feel right if he had to leave it behind.

Feeling that same urge again, he slipped it into his utility belt, watching as it disappeared with a flash of light and smoke, before phasing through the roof and taking off. Smiling as he felt the wind ruffled his hair, his now glowing green eyes looked over the city in wonder.

"Man, I could fly all day and not see half of it." He muttered, not sure where to go first. After a few minutes of simply following the wind, he decided to head for the harbour. After all, it was in the main part of Hong Kong, was a beautiful sight on its own and there'd no doubt be plenty of interesting attractions where everyone gathered, right? Besides, there'd also be plenty of people to get excited as they saw Danny Phantom flying around and, as much as fame could be annoying, he liked the happy, excited exclamations people made when they saw him. It made him feel appreciated and made them happy to see the air show. A win-win.

"Amazing how happy you can make someone just by smiling and waving." He grinned to himself as he looped and swayed through the air, letting it grow into a full smile as cheers already started on the ground below. Yeah, it felt good to be liked.


	3. Chapter 3

**AN:** Three weeks, three updates. Every summary I promised has been placed on my profile page, just as I promised, so if the DBZ alterations or Roxas thing confuses you, feel free to check it out. Well, that's all folks, hope you enjoy this chapter and see you next week with chapter 4.

* * *

**Chapter 3**

Sighing quietly as he walked down the street towards the hotel they were staying at, Jake pulled back from his family and tucked a small book into his pocket. Of course his father just had to sort through Loa Shi's stuff from China and discover a magical tour book! As if there wasn't enough places and stress he could throw on his family in the normal world!

It was only sheer dumb luck that Jake had managed to take it without his father noticing and without it, he couldn't find the magical teahouse he wanted to check out. The only upside to it all was that without it, he was brought down enough to steer him back to the hotel.

"Gramps, why the heck did you leave this where he could get it in the first place?" He asked, raising an accusing eyebrow at the small, old man. After all, his Grampa was the one most determined to keep their nature as dragons a secret. Such an act was hypocritical of the old man.

"Honestly...I forgot I had it." He replied, smiling a little sheepishly before returning to amusement as Jake face-palmed. It just had to be one of those rare times when you actually could see some of the similarities in the grandfather and grandson. "But no matter. No harm was done."

"Oh no, the early wrinkles I'm gonna get from all the worrying and stress of today are nothing to worry about." Jake said sarcastically. He reframed from going on from there though. After all, this wasn't entirely his fault. The truth of it all was that someone should have told his dad about the family's reptilian natures long ago. He'd married into a family of dragons, had two dragon children of his own and he still knew nothing. It wasn't really fair to him and it only caused the rest of them problems.

_Then there's the fact that he doesn't have a clue about all the good I do. And simply punishes me because doing it breaks my curfew._ He added, biting his lip sadly as he stared at his father with half clenched eyes. Lately it had grown harder keeping his secret from his old man. It started when he had to keep catching himself midsentence a lot more than usual. He couldn't explain why, but he kept feeling like it was ok to talk magic with his dad, like he'd always done it, only for his mind to remind him that it was definitely NOT ok. Then, that made him realise just how much he wanted to tell his dad. Not so he'd be more understanding when he broke his curfew, though that would definitely be a good bonus, but because he genuinely wanted his dad to know who and what he was. To be able to talk openly with him and make his dad proud of him. He couldn't let the non-magical world know about him, but if he could just have the pride and acceptance of his father, he thought that would be perfect.

"I know that look young one." Loa Shi said softly, placing his hand gently on Jake's arm, his friends and family oblivious to it all. "I know what you long for, but it isn't wise to dwell on it so much."

"Would it really be so bad to tell him?" Jake asked, staring almost desperately at his father. "Has he matured enough to take it yet?"

"He could handle it now, I believe that is true." Loa Shi started hesitantly. "And perhaps he was ready a long time ago, but now the truth comes with a new risk. It's been too long. He may feel betrayed, hurt and angry that we have not told him sooner. It suggests a lack of trust and he may not be able to forgive us for such a thing. He could very easily stop trusting your mother. At this point the truth could tear your family apart."

"Of course." Jake scoffed, drawing the attention of Haley and his friends. Fortunately, his parents were too wrapped up in their own conversation for his dad to notice theirs. "Why do I ever bother hoping for anything different? Why do I ever hope to have the full acceptance and pride of my dad for all of who I am like any other guy?"

"Your dad is proud of who you are Jakey." Trixxie said softly, pulling him into a loose hug, Spud joining them a second later.

"Yeah, he doesn't need to know that you can grow scales and breathe fire to know who you are. And that's what matters, not what you are."

"Truer words have never been spoken." Foo muttered beside them through the corner of his mouth, though he stopped there as other people came close to their group.

"And don't forget, even if your father is not aware of what you are, your mother and I are and, for all your screw ups, we couldn't be prouder of you." Lao Shi added warmly, staring up at his grandson with open affection.

"That goes for me too. Though you'll never hear it from me again." Haley jumped in sweetly, a cheeky smile crossing her face. "You'd have to be above and beyond normal to stay sane doing your job. Not that I believe that you are entirely sane, but I still am impressed."

It wasn't the same, but it definitely was something. And to hear it coming from Haley too, of all people, it was more than enough to bring a thankful smile to his face and, at least, temporarily remove his troubles from his mind. Dysfunctional, wacky and everything else that could be said about them, he really did have a great group of friends and family.

However, not a minute after the smile appeared, it disappeared in an instant as a net came out of nowhere.

"WHOA!" The cry had barely left Lao Shi's mouth before the net had finished wrapping around him and ripped him into the air. Frozen with shock, the rest of the group could only follow him with wide eyes and gaping mouths as he flew away. That is, until they saw just who was smirking back at them from a speeding vehicle, holding the staff bearing the captured old man.

"What in God's name-"

"CHANG!" Jake, Trixxie and Spud screamed simultaneously, watching in horror as she got further and further away.

"DAD!" Mrs Long screamed, already running after her father, her husband moving right alongside her.

"Kids, call the- WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Mr Long screamed, only growing more afraid as he was overtaken. The instant Susan had screamed, Foo and the kids had snapped into action, the dog running while Jake, Trixxie and Spud threw down their skateboards and took off, Haley hitching a ride with Jake. "Come back here, this is far too dangerous!"

However, not one of them even slowed down slightly. In fact, Jake sped up. There was no way he was letting Chang get away with Gramps. He'd reveal his dragon nature to the world before he let that happen. _Sorry Dad, I just can't stop._

"KIDS! COME BACK!"

...

Flying had definitely been a great idea. Already, Danny could hear the cheers of people noticing his presence, but, as nice as it was, that wasn't even the part he was focusing on. The city looked absolutely amazing from the air and even better around the water. The sun was hitting the deep, blue liquid at just the right angle to make it sparkle at him, making the entire area look even better. The buildings around it were huge and amazingly well kept and every shop contributed to the colours and decorations, from flowers to lights. It could use some more natural life, but for a highly populated city, he didn't think he'd ever seen one look better.

_Though that might be because of the bird's eye view._ He mused, blinking as the sun reflected from a window into his eyes. _I'll have to wait until tomorrow to see if it's the same at ground level._ Spending a little more time around the edge of the harbour and getting his fill of the scenery, he moved a little further inland. The buildings got a fair bit smaller, but instead of diminishing the impressiveness of them, it made them look cosier, perfect environments for cafes, flower and souvenir shops and the like. You know, the kinds of places where warm hearted hospitality is expected. Resorts and grocery stores dotted the area too, making it look like a very nice place to be. Some of the resorts looked absolutely awesome.

"Hmm, Hong Kong sure is a peaceful place." He commented, taking a seat on top of the tallest building in the area and watching as lots of groups of people interacted happily below. "It's hard to believe. Who would suspect that this place had more ghosts than almost anywhere in the world? If any of them are hostile, the others must be keeping them in check. But even beside that, I thought I read that this city had one hell of a criminal underworld problem, but there's nothing to..."

Naturally, the universe felt the need to prove him wrong again, for before he even finished that sentence a small explosion went off below. Tensing, he turned in its direction to find a blue vehicle speeding away while its inhabitant fired purple blasts again and again, though at whom he wasn't sure from his altitude and distance.

"Well, it's not a ghost...I think." He muttered as he pulled himself back into the air and dived right at the attacker. "But it's not like I ever was good at ignoring cries for help." He grinned, pointedly ignoring the fact that he heard none. At the most, people were just giving startled shouts and the group of skating kids being shot at, which he could now see fairly clearly, were barely grunting at the assault. No doubt it was nothing new to them. "Hey, what do you know! The rare creatures known as teenagers with a death wish." He mused, frowning exasperatedly. Experienced or not, with no powers these guys were going to get themselves killed. What were they thinking going after Miss Point and Shoot anyway?

Though, as he got in close, he had to admit that they definitely had skill. The vampiric looking woman was firing again and again at the three skateboards, their four riders and the dog and couple chasing behind them with deadly accuracy and while the three lagging behind had to dive and roll, the kids were merely pulling off impressive stunt after stunt, using boxes, awnings and whatever else they passed to rebound and elevate through. They were almost as impressive as he was in the air.

"Yo Chang! Unwanted company!"

"Huh? Is that a talking monkey?" Danny gaped for a second before shaking it off and continuing on his way. He could wonder over that when he had these two caught.

Looking up, the woman now known as Chang scowled deeply at him before a dark smirk crossed her face. Letting it grow darker, she let her staff down to point towards the watching spectators along the side of the road.

"AWW MAN! Chang don't!" The Chinese boy in red and blue cried, clenching his teeth in barely restrained panic. If anything, that only made her smile more as she fired, right at a screaming family.

"NO!" Pulling up the speed, Danny threw himself right into the line of fire and, unable to erect a shield in time, fired right back, cancelling the shot out. Unfortunately, that only gave Chang more time to get away, especially as she continued. Between the shots fired at the chasing teens and innocent bystanders, Danny didn't have the time to chase after her properly even with three clones helping him.

"Stay back! I can handle this." He cried as he found himself shielding a boy in a beanie for the second time before firing at a blast directed to the Chinese siblings. "It's too dangerous here!"

"No way! She has Gramps and this is all about getting us anyway." The Chinese boy shouted back, sparing Danny a glance that almost made him freeze. Both because his eyes had turned dark red and because his face set something off inside Danny. A deep feeling of familiarity that the red eyes only made grow stronger. For a second, his mind even produced a flash of fire and a reptilian form taking the boy's place. But it was gone as soon as it appeared and the kids skated on, leaving Danny thoroughly confused. This kid's eye weren't red before and this energy throwing woman with a talking monkey wanted him? The more he thought about it, the more that red dragon image came to mind. Even as he flew after them into a giant building, he still couldn't shake it from his head, which was a problem. At that moment, it was a very big distraction.

"Spread out. They're in here somewhere." The red eyed boy ordered, coming to a halt just inside the main doors, both he and his sister jumping off the skateboard.

"Jakey, this place is huge! They could be anywhere." The girl called back loudly, stopping Danny midflight. The name Jake only made the dragon image in Danny's mind stronger, further confusing him.

"Or we could be right here." A deep, dark, sinister voice grumbled, finally refocusing Danny's mind. Whoever that was, it was someone very dangerous.

"We need to hurry big guy, missy magic! There's a complication!" The monkey cried hastily. Smirking, Danny took that as his queue. "AAHH, there he is." He cried again, pointing a shaking finger at Danny as the ghost hybrid stroke confidently through the threshold.

Looking around, in addition to the kids, the vampiric woman and the monkey, there were two other beings in the room and both had him tensing at the raw power and dark feeling flowing from them. The giant, vicious dragon particularly.

The dragon looks up at Danny with an almost completely unconcerned manner, something that sent alarm bells off in Danny's head on its own. Everyone knew who he was by now, whether his hair was black or white, and had a pretty good idea of what he was capable of. Even when he faced a new ghost, they were extremely wary of him now. but this _dragon_ of all things, not a ghost dragon, but a true, living and breathing dragon, wasn't even slightly concerned about his presence, despite the fact that he and the reptile were obviously on opposite sides. Either this beast was extremely arrogant, had lived under a rock for almost a year or was just as dangerous as Plasmius at least. And he wasn't even on his own.

The new woman was extremely young in comparison to Chang, but Danny had a really bad feeling that she was the more dangerous opponent. She was looking at him a lot more warily, tensing as much as he was, but her hands and eyes were already glowing with pure pink power. Staring at the group, Danny had to forcefully hold back a gulp. There was no way he could handle this all on his own. That didn't stop him from acting like he couldn't though.

"So, Scaly, Vampy, banana breath and a wicked witch. What is this, invasion of the freaks?" He asked, letting icy, blue energy gather in his hands. "How about we do this the easy way for once? You hand over the old man and we'll all walk out of here like nothing ever happened. Or I can put you all on ice. Your call."

The deep chuckling of the dragon was far from encouraging. "Foolish child. The five of you combined do not have the power to take on me, much less the four of us at once. Coming here has only sealed your fate." With that, he raised one of his enormous front claws, a ring of dark lightning surrounding it the only warning anyone got before lightning surged out and struck Danny right in the chest.

"AAAARRRGGGHHHH!" Blown back into a wall, Danny was stuck, writhing in pain as magical lightning held him in place.

"That's it. Dragon UP!" Squinting his eyes, Danny's jaw would have dropped to the floor if he wasn't in severe pain as he watched both the siblings jump into the air, the boy glowing and orangey-red and the girl glowing pink before they were consumed in flames of the same colours and emerged from them as dragons. In Jake's case, it was the very same dragon that had been haunting Danny's mind.

Jake swooped right up at the Dark Dragon and blew the biggest stream of fire he could muster right at his head. The flame was casually extinguished with a mere flip of his tail, but it was effective enough to end the dark lightning and let Danny sink to the ground. Both dragon siblings followed up the attack by weaving around the oversized beast and swooping in with a fierce punch or kick, but the he merely batted Haley away with one hand and snagged Jake out of the air with the other, squeezing him tight enough to leave him jerking violently as he screamed in anguish.

"JAKE!" The dog from before had caught up now and he and the other kids, terrified for their friend, charged right at the Dark Dragon, however, before they could take three streps, glowing pink sprung out of the wall, wrapped around their torsos and every limb and yanked them back against the wall hard enough for an audible thump. "ARGH!"

"Hold on guys, I'm-ARGH!" Moving in Haley aimed her claws for the base of Spud's chains, but before she could so much as touch them a pink beam struck her in the back and blew her into and through the wall. Crashing to the ground just in time for her parents to reach the area and scream at the sight before them, she passed out.

"HALEY!"

"Haley? You mean...that's my daughter?" A moan followed that voice, right before the thump of Jonathan Long crashing to the ground too, completely unconscious.

"Oh, this is going great." Danny muttered, pulling himself back to his feet and taking a quick observation. Within two minutes his side had been dropped to just him and a dragon who was being squeezed to death against four bad guys, two of which hadn't made a move since they entered the building. And that evil dragon alone definitely had enough power to take them all on. He wasn't bluffing before.

Taking back to the air, mindful of the silver haired girl's eyes snapping dangerously to him, he quickly created the biggest ecto sphere he could and tossed it at the Dark Dragon before zipping away with a shout as a pink blast came right for his head.

"You just had to show up now, didn't you?" She snarled, ripping chunks of the floor from the ground with a wave of her glowing hand and sending them flying at Danny. "You couldn't wait even half an hour!"

"Well duh!" He shouted back, weaving around the chunks and leaving them to crash through the ceiling as he shot a few small blasts back her way only for a pink shield to neutralise them. "I'm Danny Phantom! I'm not one of those cliché heroes that shows up at the last minute, I show up on time."

Meanwhile, the ecto sphere struck home, right into the Dark Dragon's shoulder. It didn't do much damage at all really, it was more that he wasn't expecting it, but the impact did still make him stumble with a grunt and loosen his grip on Jake. Survival instincts and training kicking in, Jake thrust his claws as deeply into his captor's flesh as he could, causing the hand to loosen further in an unconscious attempt to relieve the pain, and pushed himself right out of the Dark Dragon's grasp only to be struck by one of Chang's beams.

"Aww, man, this stinks." He groaned, skidding across the floor before pulling himself up on all fours just in time for one of the Dark Dragon's larger than life fists to crash down on his back. "ARGH!"

"Foolish boy. You did not think it would be that easy to escape, did you?" Chang sneered, a monkey laugh coming in loud and clear behind her.

"This is just Bangers! What do you say we destroy him now?"

"Not yet. We still need him alive for a few moments longer." Dark Dragon grumbled, planting a groaning Jake flat against the ground as he turned to their accomplice to find her still locked in combat. He had to admit, the ghost boy was good.

Whenever Charmcaster threw a beam or a blast his way, if he didn't dodge it with ease, he put up a shield and neutralised it with a blast of his own. Chops, kicks and intangibility were his most frequent responses whenever water, stone and chain assaults came his way, fire spells always being countered by cryokinetic beams. His own offensive strikes were proving to be a series of quick attacks, ecto balls and ice shards dominating them. Probably to disrupt Charmcaster's efforts as he moved in close, a wise strategy when dealing with sorcery. With the high variety of weapons their powers gave both of them, they seemed to have gotten stuck in a stalemate.

"Perhaps we should give her a hand." Dark Dragon mused before releasing a huge black and dark blue flamethrower from his mouth.

Fortunately, Danny had being paying attention to the reptile the whole battle and overheard the warning. Within an instant, he altered his flight course to straight down, letting the dragon's fire incinerate Charmcaster's vines, before creating three clones and sending them off. One shot straight in at Charmcaster, keeping her locked in a high speed battle of pink and green beams while another aimed for Chang, weaving around all her shots before firing a blue beam at the floor and freezing it over, causing her and **Bananas** to slip. The third clone turned invisible and charged up an ecto flash ball while the real Danny flew as fast as he could to Jake. The Dark Dragon responded by gathering his dark power in his hands again, but before he could do a thing, the third clone tossed its ball right at his face where it exploded in neon green and white light, blinding him with a scream and having him jerking back. Seizing his chance, Danny grabbed Jake by the arm and shot high into the air and away from the bad guys while his clones continued the attack, all of them throwing explosive ecto discs at their opponents.

"Are you alright?" Danny asked, frowning worriedly as Jake gasped for breath. The guy had a lot of bruises, a number of cuts and with the pressure his body had been under, he could very well have broken bones. However, Danny's concern was replaced with cautious relief a moment later as Jake calmed his breathing and flared his wings, allowing him to fly on his own.

"I'm good. Dragon scales leave me as armoured as a tank." Jake nodded, wasting just a second to smile appreciatively before taking off toward his friends. "We've gotta get them outta here! And then find Gramps."

"Easier said than done." Danny muttered as his clones pulled close to together and fire a mix of flash balls, ecto beams and what looked like a wave of icy energy. They were still having a very distracting effect, but there was no way that it was going to last much longer. Charmcaster had already covered the room with pink energy, sealing off all the exits, so despite how little their enemies could see or how little attention they could pay to Jake and the real Danny at the moment, escape wasn't possible.

"Would you _please_ hurry up and get this off of me? The chain look is not for me." Trixxie grunted as they landed beside them. The three of them were struggling constantly, but the chains wouldn't give an inch.

"Chill Trix, this'll only take a second." Jake responded, grabbing hold and ripping hers away. Danny stepped right up to the boy and dog and simply turned them intangible, passing them easily through the chains.

"Oh man, was that cool or what?" Spud cheered excitedly, looking over his transparent body as his tangibility returned to it.

"Yeah, awesome, get an autograph later, right now, let's get out of here." Jake shouted hastily, running straight for the doorway only to run into the pink energy blocking it and smack back down on the ground.

"Sure kid, but the only way to get out is to cut the power to the magic shield keeping us in." Foo retorted smartly as he walked up to Jake's head.

"And speaking of the source!" Spud shouted, pointing, wide eyed and terrified, at what looked like a hundred ice shards with pink glows surging right at them from a very annoyed Charmcaster's direction.

Thinking fast, Danny jumped in front other group and created a square shield before them, grunting loudly as the ice struck it, while at the same time, completely on some unknown instinct, Jake shot up into the air and released the largest flamethrower he could, not defensively at the ice, but offensively at the witch.

Scowling, Charmcaster levitated high into the air, dodging the flames, before redirecting it right back at him with a few words under her breath. Unperturbed, Jake flew right through it and aimed a fist right for Charmcaster's surprised face only for a large, black tail to come out of nowhere, right at Jake's side.

Lucky for Jake, it wasn't alone as Danny shot right at Dark Dragon's head, charging one of his boots, and planted it right in the centre of the forehead.

"ARGH!" Unprepared, Dark Dragon had no way of avoiding the shockwave, the force of it sending him into the ground hard and propelling Danny far from the beast, the only thing that save him as a screaming Chang transformed into yet another dragon and fired like crazy at him, both with her staff and her dragon fire.

"At the rate this is going, the whole building's gonna come down!" Foo cried before ducking with a scream as Dark Dragon released a scattering shot of dark power. Trixxie and Spud hit the dirt right beside him as the room filled with lightning.

Up in the air, the boys had drawn in close as Danny threw up an ecto shield around them, this time in the form of a sphere, Charmcaster doing the same for her allies on the ground. However, Danny's eyes were already clenched tightly shut and his groaning was growing louder and louder as the dark lightning only continued to crash into the shield. There was no way he was going to last long.

...

"Ok, now that's subtle." Gohan muttered, glaring off towards the streets. He'd barely gotten into town and within ten minutes he'd already found what had to be the source of Piccolo's concern. He couldn't sense the source, meaning that it had to be magical, and the place was still too far off to see, but if flashes of fire, pink, purple and green energy beams and what looked like dark shaded lightning heralding explosions wasn't a dead giveaway, Gohan didn't know what was. It looked like he was watching one of his father's and Vegeta's battles for crying out loud. "I was hoping to end this thing quick, but this is ridiculous!"

Shaking his head at the whole thing, he simply headed for the fight as fast as he could. After all, if the dark presences there wanted to display themselves to world like a Z Fighter would, then it just made his job easier. No sense looking a gift horse in the mouth.

...

Letting her shield spell drop as the enraged Dark Dragon focused his power on the two heroes, Charmcaster scowled deeply. This fight had gone on for far too long and even if her containment spell was keeping everything alive in, the destruction and stray fire was getting out, planting a giant neon sign for the rest of the world to see. And that was without the fact that the amount of magic in play here had to have been sensed by a great deal of magical creatures by now, including the Dragon Order.

"And to top it off, where Phantom goes, the Fentons aren't far behind." She muttered to herself as she reached out with her senses, monitoring the approach of everyone in her range. Police had already circle the area, but her spell was keeping them out. It would take a lot more than them to bust through her walls. She could also sense the approach of a few dragons in the distance and her scowl only grew deeper. That was extremely dangerous to The Dark Dragon's goal of the plan and considering that this was her idea, that would result very badly for her. And then there was...

"No." She said softly, her skin turning chalk white. She couldn't believe it. Of all of the other teenage heroes in the world, it just had to be _him_ on the way. Together, they could possibly take him on, especially since his memories of their kinds of powers were no longer existent, but even then it would take a great deal of time and the plan for the Dragons would be ruined. Plus, even if they won, he could very well escape anyway! "WE HAVE TO END THIS NOW!"

"AARRGGHH!" Danny's shield had finally given out and both boys were struck hard and slammed into the ground, writhing under the power of the Dark Dragon. However, there was no time to take pleasure at the sight. Running up to the downed heroes, Charmcaster placed a glowing hand over Jake's screaming and shaking form and directed the other, palm open, towards **Bananas**. Muttering in a long lost language under her breath, her hands glowed pink, followed by the red dragon and the yellow-clad monkey a moment later. A bright flash blinded everyone as she finished her spell and when it cleared, it was to a very troubling sight. In the monkey's place was another reptile. One that was the spitting image of the American Dragon.

"What the...AAHH!" The reprieve the blinding light had given them from the lightning, it having broken Dark Dragon's concentration and had him covering his eyes, was short lived and Jake couldn't even get a single sentence out as Charmcaster muttered another few words in a dead language and opened a portal before blasting him and Danny through it.

"The Super Saiyan is coming! If you want you plan to work, get out of here!" Charmcaster snapped as she ran to and through the portal, only holding back long enough to put the humans and dog into a deep sleep. Anything the dragons may have wanted to say after that was forever lost to her as the portal closed.

Where it was taking her, she didn't know. She'd rushed the spell and created a dimensional portal without any destination even in mind, much less incorporated into the spell. However, she had to go through. Both to disappear from the radar of the annoying good magic practitioners she was sure had sensed her and because the two Guardians were still alive and therefore a threat. Furthermore, this event had brought them together and that meant that it was even more important that they were killed. The potential they had together was simply too great.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

"Quick, he's over there!"

"Move fast or he'll get away again."

"I'm running as fast as I can!"

"Your Majesty!"

"Wait for us Mick!"

King Mickey didn't pay any attention to the calls as he leapt from building roof to building roof, his golden Keyblade in hand. He was in hot pursuit of the most elusive villain he'd ever come across and he wasn't about to let him get away no matter how worried for his safety his people were. It wasn't like the guy had been particularly dastardly anyway.

The figure had turned up weeks ago, right out of the blue, around the time the Dimensional Witch's magic had returned him to his castle from the most unusual of all worlds and had been causing a lot of distress. However, no one had really been hurt at all and there was little destruction. In fact, the only time either had happen was when PJ, one of the fighters currently been trained by Goofy, had managed to corner the guy. Even then, though expert martial arts skills had been displayed, far exceeding those anyone other than maybe the King's, his captain's and his magician's themselves, PJ and Max Goof, who'd caught up a second later, had left the scene having been quickly defeated, but left with no more than a small bruise or two. The dark clad warrior wasn't so much a villain as a thief.

He was definitely an impressive one though, Mickey was happy to admit as he watched the black and grey clad criminal swing effortlessly off a rope holding up a parade banner and flipping gracefully from one building to the next. The guy had gymnastic ability comparable to his own and flexibility that had once had the King considering the possibility of the guy being a Nobody, like those of the defeated Organisation Thirteen, though he scrapped it when he took in just what this guy had been seen stealing. No Nobody would care about stealing food, gold and jewellery, they'd go after stuff like the Corner Stone. Not to mention that he'd made it into the world despite the protection the Corner Stone provided, suggesting that he had no intention for malice and chaos.

Picking up the pace, Mickey aerial flipped right onto the last roof as the thief leapt to the ground and ran for the nearby forest and followed him down, his Keyblade starting to glow at his side. He was close and there was nothing but flat land between them. Perfect for a shot.

"Pearl!" With a flourish of his blade, a giant pearl made white-blue light flew right at the figure only for him to jump into a slide to the left, lowering his body as it passed harmlessly by, and keep on going, though the move did cost him a little bit of ground.

"I must say I'm impressed." Mickey was a little surprised as the words trailed back to him. It was the first time on record that the thief had talked at all. His voice came out a little metallic, no doubt distorted a little by some device in his skull-like mask and he had drawled, but the small King could still make out the hint of honesty and approval in it. "Normally Kings are fat, lazy and bossy. None could keep up with me. and yet you're the greatest fighter of your kingdom. I'll have to make a note to stay clear of your castle."

"You are truly a unique opponent yourself." Mickey returned, shooting another two Pearl spells while the thief shot back what looked like red X shaped weapons that reminded the mouse of ninja stars from seemingly nothing but red X marks on his palms, both jumping and flipping around the others' attacks. "But that does not mean that I can allow you to rob from my people any longer."

"Heh, what a truly unique King you are. Actually going out of your way just to help your people from a simple common thief. You have my respect." The guy called back, almost making it to the trees. "I however, only look out for number one, so naturally, so sorry your highness, but I can't let you take me- whoa!"

Just as he was about to make it into the trees, a blinding pink light appeared out of nowhere. It was only his amazing reflexes that saved him from running right through it as he leapt to the side. Not far behind him, Mickey skidded to an immediate halt as the light took the form of a large circle that looked three dimensional within, despite being flat as a disk. A telltale sign of a dimensional portal.

A pair of screaming voices echoed through a moment later right before two fast moving figures burst from, sending Mickey back flipping clear of their crash landing and resulting roll across the grass. Grunting his teeth, he dropped into a defensive position as soon as his feet returned to the ground, ready for whatever attack these new accomplices might send his way, only to drop his jaw in pure shot as he took in the forms groaning at his feet.

"Well...gosh!" He'd be a bit bashful about admitting later, but the simple fact was that that had stunned him still. Lying before him, groaning in pain was a red dragon and a boy clad in black with a very familiar DP symbol on his chest, even if the black and white colourings of his clothes had been reversed the last time he'd seen him. The last people he'd ever thought he'd run into by the forest of his world were the American Dragon and Danny Phantom.

A few seconds was all he got to recognise them however, as another figure followed quickly behind, one that set Mickey right back into his defensive stance. He didn't recognise her in the slightest, though he could detect the air of sorcery around her, much like the Tennyson cousins. However, unlike theirs, hers was tainted with a much darker aura, far too dark for one proficient in the art of light magic to become anything but wary about.

"Huh, this is getting interesting." Mickey had almost forgotten that the dark clad thief was even there before he spoke, a smirk no doubt hidden behind his mask as he looked over the scene. "It looks to me that we just found a real bad guy."

"One that somehow made it passed the power of the Corner Stone." Mickey muttered under his breath in agreement as the woman stopped in place as the portal closed behind her, her wary eyes brushing over the thief uncaringly before moving on only to widen in obvious recognition as they landed on him.

"I think she knows you, your majesty." The thief commented slyly.

...

Horror flooded Charmcaster's entire being, freezing her in place as her eyes locked on a very familiar creature. This couldn't be happening! Of all the worlds her spell could have transported her to, of all the people it could have brought her across, it had to be _him_!

_King Mickey._ The Keyblade Master. It would have been impossible for her not to know of his existence. No one watching could have missed it when he and his allies had entered her world. Together, they possessed an unprecedented amount of pure magic and with the world so shrouded in darkness, their light shined like a beacon. And she had watched the events of her world the whole time the Heartless had invaded. She watched as he fought, Keyblade in hand, alongside the Guardians. And she knew he remembered everything.

This one being had the potential to ruin everything she'd set out to do. He had the knowledge of the Valour Guardians and he had the power to send the dragon and phantom back home. He could restore the greatest threat to evil her world had ever known. She couldn't let that happen!

_I have to be quick!_ Moving fast, she flung her glowing hands over her head, letting her magical energy swirl together and fired the strongest beam she could at the still recovering heroes. "DIE!"

"NO!" However, Mickey was just as fast and sprung into action. Ignoring the thief entirely, he jumped right in between the downed heroes and the attempt on their lives and thrust his Keyblade into the air. "Light give me power!"

"AAHHH!" Jake, Danny and the thief cried simultaneously, shielding their tightly closed eyes as a blinding like erupted. Rising from the ground in a circle around his feet, the light gathered and grew at the point of Mickey's blade before exploding outward, covering the entire area around him.

"NO! ARGH!"

"WHAAA!" Though the young heroes were safe on the ground, the same couldn't be said for the wrongdoers. The white explosion crashed hard into the pink beam and blew right through it, crashing hard into the dark sorceress, while off to the side, it collided right into the thief blowing him away into the trees.

Smashing her back hard into a large tree trunk, Charmcaster clenched her teeth, glaring venomously at the rodent king with half closed eyes. It was taking all her will not to pass out from the blast alone and the cannon ball worthy blow of her landing was not helping at all. She wanted nothing more than to make the Key Master pay.

Unfortunately, that was one fight she couldn't win in her condition. Especially now, as the heroes she'd aimed to kill were rising to their feet. Injured as they were, she would be a fool to think it would make a difference. They were two of the Valour Guardians and though they may not remember it, they had still been through far worse and fought on anyway, overcoming untold danger and growing stronger from doing it. She couldn't win against the three of them.

"This isn't over. For any of you." She spat, silently promising death to each one of them, muttering a teleportation spell under her breath before any of them could respond and with a pink flash, she was gone.

Things had just grown a hell of a lot more complicated. Now, not only did her target know she was after him AND have Phantom by his side, they would both be under the protection of the Keyblade Master and King, which guaranteed the aid of his warriors and spell casters as well. Her usual methods would be useless now and alone, in a world almost devoid of all evil, she had no one to turn to.

_Perfect. What am I supposed to do now?_

...

"Well, this is just plain weird." Gohan was utterly perplex as he stared around the area just out of sight. He made it to the sight within minutes of noticing the display and yet all traces of the people involved to have disappeared. The cops had arrived around the same time he did, so instead of getting involved himself, he'd had to stay in the shadows, using his better than human hearing to eavesdrop on the situation.

From what he'd gleamed, the first room of the building was the only one touched, but it looked a lot like a warzone, littered with debris, holes in the walls and floor, and scorch marks. A couple of kids and a dog were found inside, but all of them were unconscious and none of them had any weapons capable of doing any of this, so unless they were magical, there was no way they'd done this and the Saiyan hybrid doubted that they were responsible anyway. They looked like victims, not culprits.

"...They skated ahead as they pulled away." Catching the end of her sentence, Gohan turned his attention to outside the building where a cop was talking to a couple. Or rather, the wife, her husband had passed out too, much like the wounded girl in her arms. "When we caught up, Haley and Jake's friends were like this and...have you found any sign of my boy or my father in there?"

"I sorry. We find no one else yet." The cop replied apologetically, writing everything down. "We let know if we find anything." With that and a small nod, he left her in the company of a paramedic tending to her family.

_I don't think I'm going to get in there at all. _Gohan sighed, biting his lip to hold back his irritated groan. If he could have gotten inside, he might have been able to find something. Magical or not, all living beings had some natural energy in them and if they spent a decent amount of time in one place, they tended to leave behind an echo of their aura. It wouldn't be much, but it would give him an idea as to who he was looking out for, how many of them there were and how malevolent they are. It wouldn't be much, he'd still have to be up good and close to sense them, but it was something. And more than he had right now.

_Then again..._ Right as he was about to scowl at every cop he saw, he eyes lingered back to the woman and he almost smacked himself in the head. She'd mentioned her kids and father were involved and it was a supernatural fight. She'd have to know more than she was telling the cops, details that she couldn't reveal to the non-magical. "However, if she knew that I had powers too..." Nodding to himself, he took a deep breath and headed out and around the crowd as inconspicuously as he could, pulling up the speed as he past the barrier so as not to be seen and tossed out by the cops (well, they could try) until he came up right beside her.

"Excuse me, Miss. May I talk to you for a moment?" He asked as politely as he could as she turned to him, making her jump before whipping around to face him. "I was hoping to get some information on what's going on here."

"Aren't you a little young to be working a crime scene?" She asked impatiently, her eyes taking him in for only a moment before turning back to her daughter and the other kids as the paramedics started loading them into ambulances. "You should get back behind the barrier before the cops notice you here."

"Perhaps, but I'm a little more than meets the eye." Gohan shrugged in response, completely ignoring the advice, before turning sharp and serious. "You said your son and father were in the middle of all this. How much do you know of the magic involved in this fight?"

That stopped her cold. Sucking in a deep breath, she took a moment to collect herself before turning back to him, directing the most hesitant, yet hopeful gaze he'd ever seen right at him.

"You're from the magical world too? Are you a dragon?" She asked softly, but desperately. That proved it, his hunch was right. Now maybe he could get somewhere.

"No, I'm not magical. But I do have powers of my own." He answered quietly, raising his hand. Careful not to let the rest of the world notice, he let a little of his energy gather and created a small, stable spark of golden energy gather in his palm. "A friend of mine noticed a dark presence lurking in the city. I'm here to check it out, stop it if I can. Can you tell me what's going on?"

"Not here." She muttered just loud enough for him to hear, never taking her eyes off the gold light until Gohan extinguished it. "We'll need to go somewhere more private...follow me." With that, she took one more longing look at her husband and the kids as they were secured into the vehicles and double checked which hospital they were being taken to before leading him out of the area and towards a large park. And despite how much of a disaster he could already tell had happened and the promise of only getting worse, Gohan couldn't hold back a small grin. He just might have hit the goldmine of information he needed to fix things.

...

_Like I needed things to get any more complicated._ Was the first thought that came to Jake's mind as he got to his feet. He'd gone from having a decent outing with his family in the amazing city of Hong Kong to having his grandfather kidnapped by his worst enemies, getting his butt kicked by them and a new sorceress who seemed to be in a league above him and now he was lost in a strange place that reminded him a bit of a fairy tale land and staring at a bipedal mouse holding a sword shaped like a giant key...that looked really familiar! But back on track, he needed to get back now! He had to save Gramps.

"Thanks for the save...mousey?" Danny smiled a little confusedly before his eyes furrowed as if he was struggling to remember something. "Wait...that's not quite...Mickey? That seems more accurate."

"Well, that is my name." The mouse smiled back happily, albeit tiredly, breathing a little heavily. His last stunt seemed to have drained his reserves.

"Great. How did I know that?" Danny replied, first with a happy smile before it disappeared into a frazzled look with a hand in his hair, flinching with a scream as he touched what must have been an injury.

"Because this isn't the first time we've met. It's good to see you again Danny, Jake." Mickey smiled.

"Huh? You know my name?" Jake cried, his eyes bugging out at the mouse. "No offense, but I think I would remember meeting a talking mouse holding a Keyblade..." The word slipped out of his mouth before he registered it and made him falter. He'd never seen one before in his life, but somehow he'd known...

His thoughts were cut off again as he gasped, a surge of images passing through his mind, like a stream of memories. Flashes of Mickey swinging into battle against dark creatures in what looked like a dreary castle, a silver haired boy, a redheaded girl and a brunette boy three people that reeked with evil airs. And finally a blonde boy clad in black and white with a Keyblade of each colour fighting in multiple battlefields, both blades shining with a soothing light. Bringing with it a heartache that the young dragon couldn't explain. It felt as if the blond had been someone very special to him. And someone that he had watched something horrible happen to.

"Keybearers. " He mumbled under his breath, clenching his eyes shut as he tried to grab at the source of the memories, but he just couldn't do it. The images remained, but their source had slipped well back to wherever it came from. "I...I know you...I don't know how, but...why don't I remember?"

"That's a good question." Danny nodded, frowning hard and running his hands through his hair. The ghost boy had the exact same feeling. Familiarity and an absence of its cause. The dragon, Jake, had been causing the same feeling in him since he first set his eyes on him. It was like he'd found a few pieces to a puzzle he identified, but couldn't remember what picture they were from, what they were meant to form. It was driving him crazy. "I don't suppose you can-"

"Your Majesty!" Two voices, both striking familiar cords in both boys as the three turned towards the town to find two more **anthromorphic** creatures running towards them. One was a white duck clad in blue with a staff bearing a star surrounded by a white circular shape at its end while the other was a tall, black dog in green and orange, holding a star shaped shield before him.

Neither of them even seemed to notice the ghost hybrid and dragon as they reached the group. In fact, they passed it completely, the dog taking up guarding the King's back while the duck ran right to the trees, his staff held high as he glared through them.

"What happened to the thief your majesty?" The duck asked a moment later, scratching his head. There wasn't a trace of the dark robber anywhere he could see. Surely he wouldn't have escaped the king?

"The...oh, um oops." Mickey's face went from lost to sheepish. In all the excitement, he'd forgotten why he'd come out here to begin with. It was only for a moment, but from the reports on him, a moment was all that thief ever needed to make a clean getaway. "Sorry guys. I got distracted by a portal, an evil sorceress, we need to get everyone on the lookout to stop her too by the way, and a couple of friends. Look who I found." He added with a wide smile, waving his hands to the boy.

"Who did ya... WOW! Danny! Jake!" The dog cried, his mouth dropping into a huge smile as he finally registered the king's company. Laughing merrily, he startled both of them by jumping at them and pulling them into a tight hug. "Hy-uck, I missed you guys."

"I'd probably say the same, but I don't remember you..." Danny started, phasing out of his arms when breathing became a challenge only to freeze in place as he got a good look at the dog's face. "Wait, the name...Goofy's coming to mind."

"Yeah! That's my name!" He cried happily, like it was the greatest discovery in the world. "It's so good to see you guys again. I thought the Valour Guardians would still be all broke up after that deal with the Dimensional Witch."

"The Who and what?" Jake and Danny asked simultaneously, exchanging baffled looks. But at the same time, both had to admit that the Valour Guardians did strike another cord. Shadows were starting to pass through Jake's mind, much like the memory flashes before, and the blond Keybearer flashed along again with them, once again bringing an air of loss with it.

"You two don't remember? And you're together?" The duck asked, tilting his head, an eyebrow raised as Goofy released Jake. Turn to him with the intention of shaking his head, Jake almost felt another flash run through his mind, this one depicting Goofy spinning like a tornado, holding his shield out to his side and the duck casting a powerful series of spells.

"Our meeting was kinda coincidental...Donald, right?" He added, frowning questioningly.

"That's me! The king's magician." Donald nodded proudly, looking quite pleased before turning warily to all three of them. "Now, what about this evil sorceress? How could she even get here?"

"She created a portal and blasted us through it when something went wrong with her plan back home." Jake offered, clenching his teeth as the well remembered memories of the last ten minutes flashed through his mind. "We have to find a way back. My worst enemy has my Grampa!"

"You two came out first. I'd say your good, but irregular auras shielded hers from the power of the Corner Stone." Mickey mused. It seemed to be the only possible answer, as unlikely as it was, for someone so dark to make it there and now that she was, nothing short of intentionally using its power against her would make it effect her at all until she left the world, something he knew she wouldn't have done yet. She'd already made it clear that she wanted the boys dead.

"Are you listening to me?" Jake cried irritably, throwing his hands into the air. "I need to get back and save Gramps. You've been to our world before, can you get us back there?"

"I could..." Mickey started hesitantly before looking up to him with a sad sigh. "But my way would take days from this location."

"What?" Jake cried, breathing hard and barely holding back panic. "But by then, the Dark Dragon will have...will have..."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Settle down there rookie." Danny exclaimed, place a hand firmly on Jake's shoulder. "The magic girl got us here within minutes. So we find her, beat her and get her to create a portal to send us back home. Simple."

"Alright, then let's go find her." He cried, flaring his wings only to flinch in pain. "What are we waiting for? And don't call me rookie, I've been at this since before 'Inviso-Bill' made his first public appearance.

"Then you know you're not getting anywhere on those injured wings." Danny responded, nodding to the limbs as the dragon tried to fly on to cry out with a spasm for his efforts. "And even if you found her, as we are now, she's finish what she started with ease."

"He's right." Mickey nodded, stepping up to the frantic dragon and offering a sympathetic look. "You're not strong enough right now and she could be anywhere. Leave finding her to my men. Why don't you two come with me to the castle? We'll get you cleaned up and healed so you're ready to fight her when we do find her."

"But...I..."

"Dude, just accept. Neither of us are in any condition to fight right now." Danny sighed, resisting the urge to slap the dragon upside the head. He would have, but it was head higher than his was. "You can't help your old man if she finds and kills you."

"...Fine." Jake just hung his head in defeat. He couldn't argue that logic. He was in bad shape. He would heal pretty quickly, but only if he took the time to rest. He didn't really have a choice.

"Great. So why don't you change back to your human form and we'll head on up. After all, it does mean less places causing you pain, right?" Mickey suggested as he started walking back towards the city, eliciting gasps from both the ghost boy and the reptile.

"You know that much about me?"

"You have a human form?" It was impossible which boy sounded more incredulous, bringing amused grins to the three around them, their faces revealing just as much as they stared, first at Mickey and then at each other. "Dragons can turn into humans?"

"My breed can, yeah." Jake nodded with a sigh. Danny watched on in fascination as the dragon was consumed by fire and reveal a half Chinese boy just slightly shorter than him. Amazed, he almost missed the glow coming about a centimetre out from the boy's form, only visible for a second after the flames died before it too faded away. It was the same orange-red colour of the flames and he would have had passed it off merely as dying fire if it wasn't for his experiences with ghosts. He'd learnt time and again, both from his own powers, his old transformation and from his experiences with other ghosts to recognise an aura when he saw one.

"That was so cool." Danny cheered, grinning brightly as he floated into the air. "You should have flared up like that during the fight! If you'd grabbed one of the creeps and got the flames going..."

"It only happens when I transform." Jake muttered, staring up jealously at Danny as he went to walk only for his breath to hitch as his leg screamed at the pressure. "I can't do it any other time."

"Hmm, that's weird." Danny muttered, frowning to himself as he stared off into the distance. Jake just left him to it, smiling gratefully as Goofy grabbed and helped supporting him, taking the weight off his bad leg. "Thanks dude."

"No problem Jake. An' don't you worry, we'll have you back in shape and taken on that witch in no time." Goofy replied happily and confidently, picking up the pace a little, albeit remaining cautious of Jake's capability to do so.

"Sounds good."

"But in the meantime," Danny called down, staring at each of their guides curiously. "Would you mind telling us about how we met and forgot about it? And about these Guardian guys and how Jake and I were supposed to know each other? I am feeling far too lost and stupid right now for even my liking."

Jake nodded along in agreement. If they had to wait to save his Grampa, then he could at least get some answers. He had too many questions running wild through his head and he wanted them solved now.

"Sure." Mickey nodded as they made it on to the main street, giving another one to Donald and sending the duck off. With Goofy needed to help Jake, that left the magician to gather and bring the men up to speed. It wouldn't take long before they were all searching for the sorceress. "I can't tell you all that much about the Valour Guardians' history, but I do know most of the basic information. And I can tell you all about when we met, why it happened and why you don't remember. We'll tell you everything we know just as soon as we get to the castle and check you guys out.

"Sounds good." Jake nodded in approval. It sounded great and left him feeling an air of...importance? Pride? He wasn't quite sure, but he knew that it was something good.

But it would have felt even better if he knew his friends and family were ok.

* * *

**AN:** Hope you enjoyed this week's edition. See ya again next week.


	5. Chapter 5

**AN:** Loving how common the reviews are for this story. Much better than the earlier additions. Well, chapter 6 is also already completed. So I hope you enjoy and see ya next next week.

* * *

**Chapter 5**

"So evil dragons that are much more powerful than the average are running a muck and have disappeared with two of the most powerful members of the Order." Gohan muttered, glaring at the ground. Due to being stuck outside, Mrs Long didn't have many details to go with, though it was still more than enough to draw a troubling picture.

Danny Phantom had shown up too and even he had vanished without a trace. For a normal ghost, that was expected, but Gohan had looked into the young hero and knew for a fact that he was a show pony, especially since his secret was revealed to the world and had him declared a hero. There was no way he'd simply drop off the face of the Earth if he was ok. That put three super powered good guys on the MIA list.

"I still can't believe how much more dangerous Chang and the Dark Dragon are. They can't be doing this alone." Mrs Long sobbed, wiping her eyes with her sleeve. The poor woman had gone back and forth from panicky to miserable throughout the whole conversation. "Dragons can't put up magical barriers on their own. They'd need a witch, or a conjurer or something like that."

That peaked his interest. It made sense, given the circumstances. "Can those kinds of people do things like teleportation too? Could they whisk the group away in an instant?" He asked; offer her a glass of water, which she took thankfully, before sitting on the couch in front of her.

"It is possible." She nodded hesitantly, taking a sip. "But unlikely to be what's happened here. From what I know, which is only so much seeing as the dragon gene skipped me, teleportation spells require a lot of power for the smallest of tasks and tend to be a little flashy as begin and end. To teleport a group that big would take more power than most spellcasters have on their own and the lightshow would have been obvious to me, even from outside the building. It's far more likely that they took my father and son through the underground."

"Which means that they're definitely nearby." Gohan mused, letting a small, relieved sigh leave his lips. As big and tricky Hong Kong was, it was still better limiting a search to the city than the world.

"There's no doubt about that." Mrs Long nodded, staring into her glass forlornly. "If they chose to attack now, then they have to be planning something at the thousand year toast tonight. All the dragons will gather at a temple that will appear at the peak of that mountain during the lunar eclipse." She explained, pointing out the window to a huge mountain.

"So that's where it'll be." He mused with a small grin. "Ok, so now we know their final destination, is there anything you know about what they might be planning? Obviously they wanted your family alive, the question is, what are they worth to them?"

"I don't know. Neither of them would ever help the Dark Dragon. Maybe as hostages?" Mrs Long gulped, setting down her glass as she grew more fidgety. "Or a sacrifice or a trap?" She added, her breathing going erratic as she started another panic attack. "I...oh my God!"

"Hey, hey, easy." Gohan was at her side instantly, placing his hands comfortingly on her shoulders as she gasped and cried. "I'll save them. I promise, they will be ok."

"H-how are you s-s-so sure you can?" Mrs Long choked out, staring at him with desperate eyes. She needed to _know_ he could do it, not just hear an empty promise.

"You'd be hard pressed to find someone stronger or faster than me and I'm smart and very resourceful too. It's only a matter of finding them and we know where they're eventually going to go. If I can't save them beforehand, I'll save them at the temple."

"You truly think that you have the power to stand up to their magic?"

"It's not like I...haven't before." He started confidently only to realise what he was saying. Yet, despite the fact that he hadn't even known about the magical races scattered across the Earth twenty four hours ago, he couldn't help but feel it was true. The images that flickered through his mind back on the Lookout crossed his vision again, showing more detail this time. The green eyes of the robed boy, the leather jacket with a ten emblazoned on the chest of the pink eyed boy, the strange stone with a yellow, glowing rune on the girl glowing blue and the blonde hair of the pair bathed in white light. And in addition to all that, there were two new images forcing their way to the surface. One was what could be described as a classic witch. The other was clearly an evil genie. He still couldn't remember anything else other than that one second of memory, but he just knew that they had been tough. Powerful. And that they had been stopped. But that was enough for now, he could worry about the strange resurgence of unknown memories later. At that moment, knowing that he could face it was enough. He had a job to do and a distraught mother to reassure. "I can do it, don't worry. You just head off to the hospital. If you're not there when this is all over, I'll bring your missing family back here myself. Everything will be fine, I'm sure of it."

"Yeah. Yeah, you're right." Mrs Long nodded, wiping away her tears and taking a few deep breaths. Standing up, she grabbed her handbag and headed for the door, Gohan right behind her. It wasn't until they were outside the hotel that she finally stopped her stride and turned back to him. "If you haven't found anything by sunset, come find us. If any of the kids have woken up, we could have a lot more information to go on."

"Good idea. I'll do that." Gohan nodded. If he had to wait until the creep's plan did come to its final phase, it really would be good to know what he was interrupting. The last thing he needed was to interrupt some ceremony and end up with a beak. With that, he bid her farewell just as she called up a taxi and ran down an ally before flying into the air as fast as he could. He had a small group of mostly average energy signatures to find in one of the oldest, biggest and most populated cities in the world. He'd need all the time he could get.

_At least I have an idea what I'm up against now._

...

"That...is one unbelievable story." Danny gaped, stunned still in his seat. Beside him, Jake was in pretty much the same state, though there might have been some flickers of excitement in his eyes.

"Yes, but I assure you that it is all true." Mickey nodded, sitting comfortably on the other side of his desk. After the medics had treated their wounds, which were healing much faster than normal, Danny had to admit, they had settled down in the King's office and listened to everything Mickey knew of their tale as teammates. The beginning was a sketchy story at best and a simply huge chunk was missing in the middle, but even so, as he talked about them coming together and stopping a group of invaders known as Organisation 13, echoes had wrung through his head. Glimpses of the white, overly flexible creatures Mickey described coming at him in armies danced across his eyes more than once, along with a lot of shadowy figures and Kim Possible, Jake standing alongside her. Images of a laser show and a warping room graced his mind's eye too, along with a man in a black cloak with a scar on his face and his greying hair in a pony tail smirking at him and another with cold, evil orange eyes that sent shivers down his spine.

The end however, brought a lot more detail and flickers of memory. Images of Heartless, the panic that had surged through him when he was trapped inside the thermos, freezing the place a pirate captain was occupying, battle after battle, a genie the size of a skyscraper, and...his chest ached horribly and tears welled in his eyes at the sights of Mickey and Goofy's catatonic bodies and even more so as the figure known as both Roxas and Ventus faded away right in front of them. And finally, a woman with an emotionless face, but sympathetic, red eyes.

"The monk, Raimundo." Jake started, frowning hard as he stared at Mickey and biting his lip, deep in concentration. "He was Brazilian right? Tan, messy brown hair, green eyes, often wearing a cocky smirk?"

"Yes, that's right." Mickey nodded as the description started painting one of the shadowy figures in Danny's apparently returning pieces of memory. "You remember him?"

"Yeah, a little." Jake nodded slowly, rubbing his head like he was fighting off a headache. "He was mischievous, carefree and really acrobatic. A major soccer fan too and always complaining about the lack of luxury items at the Xiaolin Temple." As he talked, Danny grabbed his own head and had to suppress a groan as more flickers of a forgotten past crossed his mind, this time depicting a lot of moments revolving around Raimundo, or Rai as he preferred. A guy that was fun to be around, but could irritate you pretty well when he went too far. Most of the time he was messing around with Jake or being chummy with the figure he knew to be Roxas. "How come I can remember so much about him, but not the others?" Jake asked confusedly. "I mean, besides everyone here, Kim's the only face I can see clearly and I don't remember much more than her sparing with Rai."

"I know what you mean." Danny nodded in agreement, rubbing his temples. "I only remember Rai so well because you triggered my memory."

"It's probably because you were so close to each other." Mickey answered, a small grin crossing his face. "I noticed when we were fighting you, Rai and Kim that you two were completely in synch, suggesting a lot of trust and confidence between you. That stronger bond probably made it easier for you to remember Rai than the others."

"Huh. Well, I guess I didn't have that kind of bond with any of them yet." Danny shrugged, not sure if he should feel hurt or not about that. Something told him that he shouldn't though. Like he was just wasn't around enough or something. "Anyway, at least that explains this." He added, moving on as he pulled the VG emblazoned device out of his pocket.

"Hey, I have one too!" Jake exclaimed, revealing one from his jacket. They were the spitting image of each other.

"You guys called them your Vcoms." Mickey nodded. "They were both communicators and computer systems, able to draw up information from your archives, from what I was told. They could help you find the others."

"If we knew how to turn them on." Jake muttered, hitting a button only to grumble at the screen. "It asks for identification and I have no idea what it responds to. If I don't get it right, which I never have, it shuts down and refuses to power back up for an hour."

"And their firewalls are so high tech that all attempts to hack it fail miserably. I've tried." Danny nodded.

"Don't worry, I'm sure you'll remember how to activate them eventually. After all, you remember a lot more now than you did an hour ago already." Mickey said optimistically as he hopped off his seat. "Now, why don't I have someone show you around the castle? I'm sure you will find a lot of better places than this boring office to hang out in until we find the sorceress."

"It's not like we've got anything better to do." Danny shrugged, hiding his excitement as Jake stood up with a resigned sigh. He felt for the poor guy, he really did. If it was a member of his family in trouble, his dad's frequent accidents and bumbling coming to mind, he'd quite happily fly off the edge of the Earth searching for a way to save them as soon as possible. Knowing that someone you love so much was in trouble and being unable to do anything to save them was no doubt the worst feeling in the world.

But at the same time, the chance to check out a new, pristine, historically designed castle? How cool did that sound?

Opening the office door, the King didn't need to go more than five steps before the man he was looking for noticed his presence and bowed.

"I'm sorry your Majesty, but we haven't had any reports on any of the felons yet." He said apologetically, before standing up straight. Looking over, Danny could see a great deal of Goofy in him. He didn't look much older than him and Jake, if at all. He was clad in a red shirt and blue pants with light armour plates strapped to his lower arms and legs and a metal vest. Strapped to his right arm was a skateboard acting like a shield.

"It's fine, I wasn't expecting anything so soon with these particular two anyway." Mickey smiled understandingly, blatantly ignoring Jake's groan at the news as he turned back to them. "Fellas, I'd like you to meet Max Goof, Goofy's son and a guard in training. Max, this is Danny Phantom and Jake Long, the American Dragon. I was hoping that you would be willing to show them around the castle. Jake in particular could use some cheering up."

"Of course your Majesty." Max nodded instantly, Danny grinning amusedly at his not so hidden excitement. "I would be happy to show our guests around."

"You told him stories of us, didn't you?" Danny grinned cheekily at the mouse king, only for it to grow bigger as Max blushed. He was caught.

"Actually, Goofy told all the kids living in the castle." Mickey replied, just as amused. "And Chip and Dale. That makes four other teenagers and two hyperactive chipmunks. You might want to keep on the lookout for them; Max is probably the calmest of the group. Besides PJ anyway."

"Then this should be fun. Let's go." Danny laughed as Max turned and led them off. Beside him, even Jake managed to crack a small grin. It looked like he liked the hero attention. Maybe they could get him to lighten up yet.

...

"AAAHHH-OOFFF! Finally! That cornerstone is such a pain in the rear." A deep voice growled as its owner tumbled out of a flimsy looking portal and hit the ground with a thump. Rubbing his backside, Pete pulled himself to his feet and looked around, grumbling to himself as he took in his surroundings. It didn't take long to identify the place and as he did, he openly gaped. "Aww crap! I landed inside the castle! Gotta hide, gotta hide!"

Sure enough, the long Hallway couldn't belong to any other building in the entire world and as he ran down it, he quickly found himself with a problem. This hallway was one of the more frequently used ones surrounding the courtyard and there were few places to hide in it, none of which were nearly big enough to cover a man of his stature. On top of that, the doors nearby led to the Magician's study and the palace library. Beyond them, in the connecting corridors were a number of other frequently used rooms as well. After all, the courtyard was in the very centre of the place. Of course the rooms nearest would be the most used and most important, it made it easier to reach your destination and was the safest portion of the castle.

Meaning that he could be busted at any time.

"And of course I would appear on the second floor." He grumbled irritably to himself as he searched for a staircase. In retrospect, he should have focused more on his destination, but the cornerstone made just entering the world almost impossible as it was. It was only because he was a native to this world that he managed to get in at all and even then, it had been almost impossible to find a portal back that didn't use darkness. Any attempt at the dark portals Maleficent granted him the power to create were instantly destroyed by that irritating stone and it was no different now that he was in either. While a force of evil was free to walk the world once they managed to get in, pure darkness was another story.

Grinning as he made it to the staircase, he started to head down only to freeze as what sounded like the hasty voices of the guards...the actual people, not the brooms that run around everywhere...heading up. Barely stopping himself from screaming in panic, he ran back the way he came only to hear more hasty footsteps. He was caught between guards and...possibly more guards.

"Aw nuts!" He cried, whipping his head this way and that. He'd never make it to another corridor or room in time and there was no guarantee that it'd be free of people if he did. That only left one option.

"Look out below!" Running up to the window, he opened it wide and jumped out, praying that no one saw him on the way down past the first floor and crashing into the bushes of one of the high blocks of plant covered earth.

"Ow, ow, ow, ow!" Sobbing as quietly as he could, he moved himself just enough to get out of the sharp branches and peer through the leaves only to groan again. His position was as uncomfortable as they came and the courtyard was currently packed. Fortunately, the gardener was only focusing on the castle design hiding the entrance to the Gummy Ship hanger in the middle of the area, but plenty of the servants and guests to the castle were enjoying themselves there, relaxing on the grass, sparing or skateboarding along the path. Judging from the afternoon sun, they'd be there for a while. Which meant he wasn't getting out of that bush any time soon.

"Why is getting revenge on those nincompoops and their King always so difficult?"


	6. Chapter 6

**AN:** Hey, this chapter's up a little late, sorry about that. Had a slight issue with my internet.

Anyway, this chapter introduces the Duck Brothers. If you want a full understanding on how they look, act and the past that they bring up, I seriously suggest checking out their old series called Quack Pack.

_Ultimate Black Ace_, the third person MIA is Jake's Grampa. He is a super powered hero too and no one knows where he is.

Oh yeah,_ Baby Porcupine, _I hope you like your 'early birthday present from a stranger you only know by the screen name of a fanfic writer'. Have a nice birthday.

* * *

**Chapter 6**

By the time they'd finished the tour, Jake was confident that half of New York City could fit in the castle. There was no way any castle back home could possibly be nearly as big. And it was almost entirely white and pristine! How the heck did the staff manage that? King Mickey and Donald had to have put some cleaning spells all over the place, he was sure of that.

"And this is ends the tour with my favourite part of the castle, as cool as the rest of it is." Max grinned as he led them down a stairway and out into the courtyard. They'd seen it from above a number of times from the hallways surrounding it, but Jake had to admit that it looked so much more amazing from ground level and within it.

The flowers were in full bloom in various patches all around the area, expertly placed to form perfect pictures. Jake particularly liked the dominantly blue flower patch with white flowers forming an outline of a large crescent moon and star in the center. And of course, who wouldn't admire the bushes all around that were shaped so perfectly? There were actually a group of toddlers and their parents sitting comfortably on the bush replica of the castle in the center. It seriously looked like all the bushes were as strong as stone.

"I thought the King said there were only five kids." Danny commented, looking around curiously and smiling as a child started laughing at his father's funny face. "I count at least twenty."

"Yeah, but only five of us aren't toddlers." Max shrugged, taking a seat on the soft grass and leaning back on what looked like a solid block of it. "And most of the kids here may come to the castle every day with their parents, but don't actually live here. The king and queen are very kind and are quite happy to let anyone working here bring their children. The kids are cared for in a day care sort of thing and the parents are free to spend time with them here whenever they have a break or before or after shifts. Queen Minnie often decides to take over the day care herself if there isn't any important duties to take care of. She says that the kids are a great and wonderful reminder and celebration of our peace and happiness, the two things their majesties strive to ensure every person of their kingdom feels every day."

"They sound like the perfect rulers." Jake mused, Danny nodding in agreement. It was hard for the young dragon to believe that this world could be such a...near perfect place. Their own world was a disaster zone, with so much prejudice and greed causing terrible things and dividing its inhabitants. Jake often heard his Grampa comment about the disarray and that he feared that the magical world would always have to hide in the shadows in fear of the entire non-magical world reacting to their existence in much the same way as the Huntsclan did. This place, looked like paradise.

"You wouldn't find kinder ones, that's for sure." Max nodded happily. "Though in the King's case, I doubt you'd find one that disappears on ya more either."

"Well, that's the life of a super hero for ya." Danny shrugged as he headed down the path. "Man, this place is so co-WHOA!"

"AAHHH!" Right at that moment, three blurs shot right out of nowhere, coming in far too fast for him to get out of the way. It was only an instinctive shift to intangibility that saved them all from a very painful collision.

Letting out a sigh of relief, Jake turned his attention to where the blurs had shot through to and were skidding to a stop, all of them taking a few deep breaths or staring around confusedly. An understandable reaction considering that they were expecting to go splat.

The first thought Jake had was that these three were definitely related to Donald, if he wasn't actually their dad. They were all ducks and covered in white feathers, but they had much leaner and more humanoid body builds. Definitely teenagers. Also, unlike Donald, they had heard of the creation and custom of wearing pants.

"Oh man, that was close!" One of them gasped, fiddling with his backward, green hat before looking up apologetically. "Sorry man, we didn't see you there."

"It's all good." Danny shrugged, offering a small grin. "No one got hurt."

"But how did you avoid us?" Another one in an open baseball shirt over a blue shirt asked, trying to get the sweaty, messy feathers acting like human hair out of his eyes. "You didn't even try to move. I'd think you stopped us in time if it weren't for the fact that I'm sure we actually went right through you."

"Yeah, even Uncle D doesn't have that kind of..." The third one decked dominantly in red with purple shorts and spiffed up feathers on his head started, only to trail off as he looked up. All the confusion left his face in an instant and was replaced with starry eyes as they found their accidental target. "OH WOW!" Danny barely had time to blink before the duck had crossed the distance between them and jumped right onto him, his beak only an inch away from Danny's face. "Human boy, black, messy hair, glowing green eyes, a fused DP symbol on your chest. Dude, you're DANNY PHANTOM right?"

"Um, yeah, last time I checked." Danny sweatdropped with an awkward smile before gently grabbing the duck boy by the waist and pulling him off his chest.

"For real?"

"Max! How dare you not tell us you had a super hero with you!" Danny almost took to the sky as the other two ducks grew as excited as the first, alternating between looking at him like Christmas came early and glaring at a grinning Max.

"Hey, like I would know where you three were gonna be? I'm just glad we didn't fall into one of your pranks while we were touring the castle."

"Yeah, that was a long walk without a bucket of water landing on my head." Jake nodded, more out of a jealous need to draw some attention to himself than anything else. He knew it seemed selfish, but seriously, they were in a world with a king that was well known as a powerful magician and he, the magical dragon was still being overshadowed by Danny Phantom? That just wasn't fair.

"Bucket of water? Puh-lease, we put lame pranks like that to bed ten years ago." The red clad duck scoffed, waving the remark off.

"So what's your name?" His green clad counterpart asked, offering him a friendly smile that instantly took the sting out of Jake. "Mine's Louie. And these are my brothers, Huey and Dewey." He added, pointing to the red and blue clad brothers respectively.

"I'm Jake Long." Jake smiled proudly, puffing up his chest. "Also known as the American Dragon."

"You're the dragon guy?" Louie grinned excitedly as his brothers gaped. "That's so cool! Is it true that you really turn into a dragon, or do you just breathe fire or something?"

Jake just smirked in response and dropped into a low stance, balancing his body. It only took a second to get the full attention of the entire group, including a strangely focused Danny, and that was all he waited for. "Dragon up!"

Danny's narrowed eyes intensified as the words left his mouth. Though it only lasted for a second as a faint, orange-red glow appeared over his entire body before flaring into flames and morphing his form into a proud, very muscular looking red dragon.

"Oh, this is so awesome!" Huey cried, looking back and forth between the two heroes. "Goofy told us all about you guys! You sound extreme! Can you tell us about the bad guys you faced or funny things to happen with your powers? Or better yet, can you show us your powers?"

"Yeah, that would be so cool!" Dewey nodded energetically, though he focused more on the ghost hybrid than the dragon. "And can you tell us how you got your powers? We got super powers from a machine a couple of times, was it something like that? And are you really half ghost? How is that possible?"

"Wow, you two talk a mile a minute." Danny commented amusedly all three of them, and even Max, watched them hopefully. "But I don't mind a little display and story time. What about you Jake?"

"It's cool." Jake nodded, already thinking over what acts of greatness he could tell. There was no way he was telling them of any 'funny' moments with his powers though; most of them were only funny for everyone but him. "How about I start with one of my first battles with the Huntsclan? It was one heck of a battle and ended with the leader of the slayers running away with his butt on fire." Well, that one was amusing for him.

Nodding eagerly, the duck brothers set their skateboards aside and zipped down next to Max, Danny following at a more sedated pace. All five simply listened keenly as Jake began his tale, only interrupting to laugh when Jake forced himself to admit to some of his Grampa's training methods to help explain some of his moves.

...

Pete was far from happy. He'd been stuck in place for well over an hour, his body hurt like hell, he was pretty sure some bugs had crept into his clothes and to top it off, two of the VALOUR GUARDIANS had popped up! Like he didn't have enough to deal with right now.

Listening as they told stories of battles against hunters, wizards, monsters and ghosts of all kinds and power levels only made him more nervous about the situation. He hadn't really bothered to look into the abilities of those native to the original world. He'd just done what Maleficent told him to do, as usual. But now, hearing about how many different types of threat's they faced and beaten time and again, the appearance of these two young heroes only scared him even more.

"It must be so cool to be heroes all the time and get everything right." Dewey said in aw, causing Pete to scowl. Like those teenage delinquents got everything right all the time! "We always got too flashy and screwed up."

"You guys were super heroes? Danny asked, tilting his head curiously. "That's right, you did mention a super hero machine, didn't you?"

"Yep. It was extreme." Huey smirked, jumping to his feet. "The machine gave each of us different super powers. I was turned into the Really Incredible Fast Guy!"

"Now there's a mouthful." Jake snorted.

"Yeah, but it was accurate." Huey nodded in self-assurance. "I was easily the fastest thing in the entire world. Even faster than Uncle D's thunder spells!" That had the dragon nodding, openly impressed.

"I was Captain Muscle." Louie shrugged like it was no big deal. "I had super strength and could fly. And way oversized muscles."

"And I completed the team as Brain Boy." Dewey exclaimed dramatically. "I had a series of psychokinetic powers. The only downside was that it oversized my brain. Together, we were known as the T Squad."

"Alrighty, weird name, but cool." Jake nodded. "So what happened?"

"If it's real at all." Max muttered under his breath, shaking his head amusedly as the duck brothers glared at him. "What? I've never seen any record of...oh wait, was it you three that turned a tidal wave disaster turn into a buried-under-sand disaster? And that screw up with a crashing plane, where instead of saving it, you got in to ride the crash in a hostess' body before it went through the hilarious result of looking like a chicken and floating away into the sea on a garbage boat?

"Um...yeah." Max, Danny and Jake couldn't stop themselves from laughing as the ducks blushed embarrassedly and duck their heads, Louie toeing the ground. "We never really did anything right." Louie admitted quietly.

"Ok, so you...used a machine to ditch the powers or something?" Danny asked curiously, giving them a sympathetic smile as he calmed down.

"No, that time they were taken away by an alien that had a vendetta against Uncle D. That was the only thing he did right and we still won anyway." Dewey shook his head, starting to regain his pride as he spoke. "The first time, we had to go back in time to stop ourselves from ever getting them in the first place because everything was destroyed."

"Say what?" Jake cried, gaping incredulously at the triplets. "You guys DESTROYED everything? I thought you were the heroes!"

"Well, some cars and buildings tend to take damage from me when I fight sometimes." Danny admitted, though he was talking a lot more quietly as he crossed his arms. "It happens."

"And it wasn't really us that did it! It was Uncle D." Huey exclaimed hastily. "See, we became super heroes so Uncle D couldn't make us clean our room back in Duckberg. And then we ignored him, so he decided to find out how we'd become so strong and used the machine to amplify his own powers."

"But somehow, Uncle Donald knocked the machine to a setting that made you evil. A super villain." Louie took over. "And super villain Donald made Magician Donald look like a chump. He could fly, shoot beams from his brain, had super strength, x ray vision and anger made him grow bigger and stronger. We couldn't even punch him without making him stronger. Eventually, his quick temper made him so big that Godzilla would be impressed and he trashed everything."

"So we had to have the super hero machine's inventor, Professor Von Drake, turn it into a time machine and went back to before it ever happened." Dewey finished. "Instead of becoming super heroes again, we just cleaned our room."

"Wow. Well, at least it holds the usual requirements of a hero's story." Danny said with a shake of his head. "Oh wait, there was banter between you and the evil Donald, right?" He added, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, or the Duck of Doom, as he was called then." Dewey nodded. "There were plenty of smart comments and threats."

"Then I'm right. Confrontation, banter, back and forth fighting and then we all go home learning a valuable lesson about honesty, hard work or some other nonsense." The ghost hybrid nodded happily, counting each part off on his fingers.

"Yeah, that sounds about right." Huey nodded before growing excited again. "Now can you show us your powers? Please? They sounded so cool."

"Sure, why not?" Danny grinned. He was already floating in the air before he'd finished talking.

Pete however, stopped paying much attention at that point. He'd seen Danny's powers first hand, so there was nothing interesting to him about a boy making an ice sculpture of the kids he was performing for. He didn't even hear the awed and excited cheers as more and more people around moved in to watch the show. He was too busy trying not to cackle.

The ever annoying duck brothers had actually given him a brilliant idea. What could possibly be better revenge on the nincompoops then having one of them wipe out not only the other and the King, but two Valour Guardians and everything the King held dear?

_That nut job inventor never destroys his inventions and I know he moved into the castle. That super villain thingamajig must be around here somewhere._ Smirking to himself as he noticed everyone vacating his side of the courtyard as Danny created two clones and flew off to the far side, he took the opportunity and snuck out of the bushes and back into the castle. Who knows, maybe when he found it, he could use it on himself too.

...

Jake wasn't really having the fun he usually had when he showed off his abilities. In fact, he felt completely shown up.

His powers were much more tame than Danny's, so going after him simply made him seem dull. His transformation and ability to breathe were unique, as was the tricks he could do with his tail, but that was basically it. He could fly, but Danny could do it faster and smoother. His duplication ability took more time and concentration than Danny's and the split in strength was obvious in comparison. And while he was physically stronger and could take a much tougher punch, he couldn't fully reveal those talents without wrecking the area and they were hardly note worthy when compared to the beams, shields and wails and what Danny called an aura burst that the Ghost Boy had shown off all throughout the sky.

"Last move." He muttered as he swooped over the area, using every usual aerial manoeuvre he knew as his duplicate did the same on the other side of the courtyard. Pulling himself into a sudden loop, both dragons made a sudden twist toward the centre of the area, aiming straight for each other.

Raising his hand to his mouth, he breathed fire into it, quickly moulded it into a ball and threw it as hard as he could just as his duplicate spewed a flamethrower at him. The two flares struck each other right over the top of the plant castle and exploded outward, leaving sparks flickering through the sky everywhere, all of which went out before igniting any of the plants.

"Wow, nice fireworks!"

"I can't believe that ball blocked a flamethrower."

"Not a bad performance."

Absorbing his dup, Jake circled around the area one last time before landing into a contented crowd. It was nice to see that they enjoyed his performance and the praise was good, but it was nothing on the overexcited spectacle that Danny had gotten. Still, he let a small grin cross his face as he dropped in front of the teens and changed back to human.

"Sorry guys, but that's my show. Unless you want me to tell you what I see a mile away, I don't have anything else to show." A few sighs went through the crowd at that, but most simply clapped and backed off, many of them returning to duties. Mostly it was polite, happy and contented, but there were a few murmurs of 'that's it?' amongst the crowd. A reaction he wouldn't have gotten if he'd gone before Danny, that was for sure.

Turning back to the teens, he found all four of the natives talking animatedly, mostly amongst themselves and occasionally to them, about the displays. Danny however, was still looking right at him, frowning deep in thought. Feeling self-conscious and still a little irritated, he scowled right back.

"What are you staring at?" He growled, startling Danny right back and drawing the attention of the others. Relaxing, Danny let an apologetic grin cross his face and raised his hands in surrender.

"Sorry, I was just thinking about your aura."

"Huh? My aura?" Jake gaped, completely thrown for a loop. Was Danny a hippy or something? I mean, it wasn't like Jake was glowing like a ghost or anything, why would such a thing as his even matter to anyone.

"You can see it just before you transform." Danny explained, accurately interpreting the confusion. "It's an orange-red, like fire, and it's what ignites into the flames that transform you."

"Huh? Really? I only ever see fire." Jake replied, openly baffled.

"You probably haven't noticed it because it's the colour of fire and only lasts for about a second before the flames erupt."

"Are you sure you're not seeing things?"

"Actually, it makes sense." Dewey broke in, drawing the attention of both heroes. "You said your powers are magic, right?" He asked, continuing on as Jake nodded. "Well, Uncle D's been teaching me the beginnings of magic training and he said that your aura is how you access your magic. You gathering it from inside your body into your aura and from there to wherever you're focusing your magic. That's why spellcasters who don't use mediums often have glowing hands, the glow is their aura being focused there. So, for a transformation, there would be a moment when your entire body glows with your visible aura."

"Oh. Alright then." Jake frowned, still pretty lost. So he had an aura showing. So what? "And why is my aura so interesting exactly?"

"Because it fuels your flames." Danny replied like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"So?" Jake cried, throwing his arms up in the air exasperatedly. Who cares how the flames appear? It didn't really change anything.

"Come on dude, even I know where they're going with this and I don't train in the mystical arts." Max cried, pointing to himself. "If your flames are controlled and fuelled purely by your aura, then they might be able to do more than you think."

"What?" Jake gaped, his eyes bugging out and creeping Max out a little. More? His Grampa never said a thing about the transformation flames having any other talents than making him reptilian and he never even mentioned his aura. If it was true, why hadn't he heard of it before? And what else could he do with it?

Well, there was only so much it could do. After all, he was a magical creature of fire and that's the product in question. And he had used the flames from his feet to spring high into the air once. Maybe they had something like that in mind?

Turning back to Danny, he met his contemplating eyes with his curious ones, silently motioning him to continue.

"This is only theoretical. However..." He started, letting his own aura surround him with white and pale green light. "If you can learn to hold just your aura like this, we might be able to use those flames erupting from you as a shield. Or even a weapon."

Ok, now that sounded good. Actually, it sounded absolutely amazing and borderline unbelievable. He'd never once heard of, nor saw, any dragon do anything like that. If he could learn how to do it, it would give him a lot of credit with the Dragon Order and give him an edge against the Dark Dragon, something he desperately needed if he was going to save his Grampa.

"Ok. Please, can you teach me?" He asked, his face set in a clear expression that wouldn't take no for an answer. Danny simply smirked in response. Like he was going to suggest all this and then say no.

"Not a problem. Let's begin."

...

Travelling the castle without been seen was borderline impossible in almost every area. However, the hallways near Professor Von Drake's laboratory were a definite exception. His inventions often turned out quite impressive, but they tended to explode frequently before the final product. So naturally, everyone wanted to stay far, far away from the place of their birth.

That made Pete's job perfectly easy. Even he couldn't screw it up.

However, even he had the common sense to tread cautiously in such a volatile place. Moving slowly and carefully down the last hallway, as if scared that a landmine might be hidden in the floor, he crept up to the lab door and slowly pushed it open.

BANG! And almost closed it again instantly as the room shook and filled with black smoke, an echoing coughing fit quickly replacing the boom. Slowly and quietly closing the door once again, Pete crept behind a particularly large, rectangular machine built like a small house with a safe door and control panel on the front and peeked around it to find a middle-aged duck with glasses and a lab coat coughing sporadically next to what looked like a high-tech vacuum cleaner crossed with a robot.

"Bloody subatomic room cleaner! What do I have to do to actually make you do your job? These explosions cause the opposite!" He grumbled, giving the machine a good kick only to release even more smoke. Even Pete felt the need to slap his face at that one. The nut had been playing with that particular invention even before Pete was banished. And that was over ten years ago!

_Still, that's not a bad distraction._ He mused, smirking darkly. Clenching his fists, he took a deep breath and walked almost casually into the smokescreen, easily finding the still coughing duck. The poor old man never saw the fist coming before it slammed down into his head.

"OOPHF!" Dropping face first into the ground, the inventor had a few seconds to chuckle stupidly at baby chickens dancing with wrenches around his head before completely passing out.

"Well now, that was easy."Pete smirked, already grabbing a roll of tape off of a nearby bench and proceeding to tying up the downed duck. Once satisfied that he wouldn't be moving or talking, he tossed him into a cupboard and closed the door. "Now, which one of the ridiculous inventions is..." He started, staring at each object warily before freezing in place, his mouth dropping stupidly. Right by the door, the invention that he'd hidden behind only moments ago stood tall right in front of him. Only this time, he actually saw the 'super hero machine' label across it. "Well, that was easy. Next, how do I use this thing?

...

This was still pretty stupid, but he just couldn't pass this chance up. The castle had never been this close to defenceless and probably never would be again. What better chance was he going to get?

_I forgot what an advantage it was to have actual villains running around._ Red X mused as he looked up through the grates from his place in the storm drains just below the castle wall. He came from a world where the Teen Titans ran ramped, taking down a number of villains that far outnumbered them. As a result, they rarely paid much attention to a simple thief like him. After all, he was just greedy for wealth, not one of those people who want to hurt people or conquer the world. He would have been left entirely as the police's problem if he hadn't stolen Robin's evil persona's suit and shown fighting and sneaking talent equal to the Boy Wonder himself. Here however, he apparently had been the worst the world had and as fun as that was, the truth is he didn't like being at the top of the most wanted list. It made it so much harder to get what he actually wanted.

Now however, with the sorceress running around with a vendetta against two of the King's friends, they seemed to have forgotten about him completely. So why not take the two advantages the situation gave him and steal something from the palace? It's not like they'd miss much anyway and even with the guards significantly lowered, it would still be a great challenge. The castle was dominantly white and he was dominantly black. Plus, the King and the teen heroes were still inside, along with the magician at least.

Moving along, he let out a soft chuckle as he found a thin, metal barrier blocking his way and released a red x shaped blade from his hand, cutting through it with one strike. _Let the games begin King Mickey. I do hope you're the worthy opponent you appeared to be before._ After all, in a world where he'd stand out even if he took off his suit, what was the point of doing this if it wasn't fun and challenging?

* * *

**AN:** And that's all for now folks. Chapter 7 is only waiting to be beta read and I'm well into righting chapter 8 right now, so you can expect the frequent updates to continue on. Hope you enjoyed the chapter and see you next week


	7. Chapter 7

**AN:** Heya every reader, nice to have you back. I've been getting a lot of questions about how Red X made his way here, so I thought I'd just assure everyone that it will be explained. Eventually, that's Red X' job.

Oh yeah, that reminds me, I've forgotten to make an announcement about his appearance. Since I believe in giving credit where credit is due, I'd like to state that the original idea of him joining the series was actually Kamen Rider Sting's. I meant to say it at the beginning of the story, but it slipped my mind due to feeling very guilty and sheepish about the wait. My bad. I apologize for not saying it sooner.

* * *

**Chapter 7**

Charmcaster couldn't believe her good fortune. The King's captain and the bulk of his forces were scattered all over the place looking for her, leaving the castle and her targets low on protection, and the palace was being infiltrated by no less than TWO villains! Imagine the chances of that in a world like this?

The dark sorceress smirked as she watched the visions her floating orbs of magic depicted, watching everyone of significance at once as she planned. She'd never get another opportunity like this, so she had to move fast. However, she also had to do it right. These two weren't working for or with her, they had their own agendas that just happened to benefit her. It would require some careful thinking.

"Perhaps I should help the overweight cat-man moron." She mused as she watched him approach a superhero machine and start fiddle with a lever, cackling to himself like he'd made some amazing achievement as an arrow on the control panel moved down from hero to evil. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that brain-dead twit's plan. After all, she had been listening in and watched as his face changed at the mention of the Duck of Doom. At first she'd suspected that he was going to use it on himself, but seeing as he had yet to do more than open the machine's door before settling in impatiently with his ear pressed to the door to the hallway, it was safe to say that he had someone else in mind. To be specific, a very tricky duck.

_Well, that settles it._ She decided. It was too good a move. The Duck of Doom was extremely powerful. He may very well destroy the Guardian boys himself and if not, his very creation removed the threat of the magician and created one that the King himself would struggle to fight, causing the bulk of his forces to him and leaving her targets defenceless.

However, the buffoon was never going to get this done on his own and she couldn't risk showing herself yet. She'd draw everyone back, with Donald too surrounded to pull away long enough to turn evil. No, she had to play this from behind the scenes until the Duck of Doom was created and grown powerful enough to deal with the King and his men.

_Fortunately, there's two._ Her smirk only grew as she focused on the black and grey clad thief already making his way from the sewer drains and through the unused tunnels. He'd caused a bit of a fuss of his own and was a very tricky man to catch, from what she'd gathered. He'd be the perfect distraction. All she had to do was draw attention to him at just the right moment.

...

"That's it...just hold it there." Biting on his lip, Jake put every bit of his focus he had into the orange-red glow forcing its way through his closed eyelids. He had been at it for about half an hour already, with varying levels of success randomly achieved all the way through, but he thought he had it now. The light of his aura had been holding steady for a whole ten seconds without a speck of fire and the clock was still counting. A definite improvement from his previous record of four seconds and then an undesired rush of fire that ended with his dragon form appearing in all its currently unwanted glory.

"Looking good Jake, let's go for a minute." Danny said encouragingly as Dewey held up a stopwatch. The others had all gotten board and taken to skating on the other side of the courtyard, but they were still monitoring and advising him the whole way through, being nothing but positive.

"You're halfway there." Dewey informed him excitedly, waving the stopwatch around for all to see. "Now try to make it to the end with your eyes open. You know how it feels and how to hold it now, try it with a little visual distraction."

Taking in a deep breath, he did as he was told and slowly let his eyelids rise, startling his coaches a little with his red eyes. His vision was a _lot_ sharper than it used to be, meaning that he had actually taken on dragon eyes, but that felt fine. He didn't feel anything else even trying to transform and he'd found that his eyes tended to change without the slightest speck of fire when he transformed them on his own anyway, so it might have just been a reaction to his pulsing aura. Something, he was glad to find, was still glowing strongly around his body.

"You know, this looks and feel pretty cool." He grinned as he looked down at his arm, marvelling at the orange-red glow as it danced warmly over his skin.

"Wow, looking, talking and moving and he still hasn't dropped the glow. What an improvement!" Dewey cried, a bright grin crossing his beak before looking down at his stopwatch again. "Ten seconds."

"I can keep it going a lot longer than that." Jake grinned broadly, pulling himself to his feet without the slightest flicker from his aura. Letting it warp into a smirk, he went started a rap beat and danced and still his aura flared strongly. "Man, I can't believe I ever had trouble controlling this. It's so easy!"

"Yeah, once you get the hang of it, it's like riding a bike." Danny nodded amusedly as Dewey put the stopwatch away. It wouldn't be necessary anymore. "So now we can move on to the next step, if you've still got energy to that is." He added with a grin. He couldn't help himself.

"Oh yeah, I got plenty to burn. Bring it on." Jake shot back, pulling himself to a stop and waiting anxiously. He really wanted to get this fast. After all, he'd told himself again and again just how amazing this could be and how much pride and prestige he could get from his Grampa and the Dragon High Council if he could master it. Not to mention the help it could give in actually saving his Grampa. "You want me to set it alight?"

"Not the whole thing yet." Dewey shook his head. "You should start the way spellcasters do, by focusing your power into one spot. Usually they start with a hand."

"Sort of like this" Danny nodded as he raised his own hand, palm up as it started glowing green. A moment later, the energy started gathering into his palm, taking on the appearance of green fire.

Jake watched him do it a few more times as he and Dewey talked him through the process. It seemed easy enough, directing and controlling energy was the key component in most of his powers so he had plenty of practice in it. The trick would be stopping the flames from going all the way and transforming his skin into scales, as it was intended to do. And of course, not burn himself. For though his dragon form had an amazing tolerance to fire, it almost didn't bother him at all, his human form was a very different story.

_They're still my flames._ He reminded himself as he raised hishand, staring at it with narrowed, red eyes. _They've covered my skin more times than I can count and never hurt me. And my aura will be in the middle, it'll protect me._

Concentrating on keeping his aura steady, he focused on igniting his hand, much like when he only wished for a dragon's claw and instantly caught it aflame, only to grunt as he felt the telltale sensations of turning reptilian. Clenching his teeth as the scales started coming into view as the flames receded from his fingers, he focused harder on the flame and forced it back. He succeeded in turning his hand back to normal, however, as soon as he did, the flames had started to go out again, only to try and transform him again when he brought them back.

"Don't fuel too much into it." Danny advised quietly, not wanting to break his concentration. "The less there is, the easier it is to control."

"Just try for sparks or candle flame." Dewey agreed.

Nodding his head, pulled some of his energy back and let the flames die down until they were just above his aura kissed skin. The change was almost instant. There was just enough fire to look comparable to a wool glove encasing his hand and though he could still feel his magic trying to push on the transformation, it wasn't putting up nearly as much of a fight. He still had scales appearing of course, but they were scattered and disappeared as often as they appeared.

"Not a bad start." Danny nodded approvingly, watching as Jake's finger nails thickened and darkened only to return to human ones without the flame ever moving away. "With a bit of practice, you should have it down in no time."

Sparing a moment, he looked up and grinned at the ghost hybrid before turning his attention back to the flames. That sounded really good to him. The sooner he perfected this step, the sooner he could start the big stuff.

And maybe finally feel like he wasn't always stepping out of one person's shadow and into another's.

...

Moving through the castle had become disappointingly easy. So many tunnels and passageways, leading to all over the place, completely unguarded. He guessed he shouldn't be surprised, after all the tunnels were secret ways out in the almost completely impossible chance that they would ever need to escape from invasion. They probably hadn't been used or even thought of since the day they were built in a world as happy and peaceful as this one.

The lack of excitement or challenging security had left the young thief highly tempted to just turn around and go swipe some apples or something. At least then he'd be sure to get a little bit of a chase out of it, even if it was only the King, his magician and his Captain that could make it even slightly interesting.

_No challenge, no way to make any profit out of anything I do actually steal here, what's the point?_ Letting out a long sigh, he forced himself to push onward. Maybe he'd see if he could ruffle the feathers of the duck or run around with the King again. That had been entertaining.

Reaching a door, he slowly forced it open and peeked out. Seeing that the cost was clear, he quickly moved into the room to find that the heavy door was hidden as a bookshelf. A fitting disguise seeing as he was apparently in a library.

_Wow. Just wow._ He thought, fighting the urge to shake his head as he took a moment simply to stare at it. _Fairytale kingdom, happily ever afters, people who are all happy, nice and helpful and now cliché secret passages behind bookshelves. Am I sure that I haven't been sucked into a children's book?_ Not quite able to stop the silent chuckle that shook his body, he lingered where he was for a moment longer and took note of all the book titles before moving on his way. In a world with no black market to sell stolen goods, books could be one of the more interesting things to steal for later, but there was no challenge in stealing from a library. To make this sorry, easy as hell trip worth it, he'd have to go where he was much more easily spotted. Where they kept the things worth stealing.

"I doubt this place has a treasury, no one's greedy enough to want that much money. Especially since everything around here is practically given away." He mused, moving slowly and carefully through the bookshelves as he got closer to the door on the other side of the huge room, finally getting a slight spark of thrill as he slunk around and out of sight of the people few perusing the shelves. So the question was, what was in the castle worth stealing? There'd be some magical items, furniture and artwork no doubt, but what would he want with most of that? Even if it was valuable, it would be too big and bulky for him to swipe, the only exception being a portrait. Magical items were completely useless to him, he could never use them. Any knickknacks lying around would look pretty, but probably be pretty cheap. So that really only left one possibility.

"I wonder where the throne room is?"

...

"WHOOHOO!" Huey's cheer rang throughout the entire hallway as he shot down it, the smooth, polished stone allowing for amazing speed. He and Louie had gotten bored with the courtyard, though they felt it was best to leave anyway. As cool as it was to have the heroes there, they didn't want to interrupt the training Jake was starting and they knew they were being annoying even on the other side of the area. Uncles Donald and Scrooge had warned them long ago that people learning new magical talents, particularly elemental magic, needed a lot of peace and concentration, otherwise you risked getting yourself or others very hurt. So they thought that they'd give them and Dewey some peace and quiet and come back to hang out with them later.

Besides, they hadn't been back from Radiant Garden very long. They had plenty of annoying theatrics to catch up on.

"Race ya around the hallways and past Uncle D's study!" Huey called cockily, pushing his board to go faster and swerving around one of the animated brooms that looked like it was throwing a fit at them as they past. It was hard to tell when they didn't have a face.

"You're on!" Louie smirked back before cheering triumphantly as he whipped around a corner and used his closure position to the wall to use a tighter turn to take the lead. "Come on Huston, getting slow in your old age?"

"Hardly, _baby_ brother!" Huey retorted, putting more effort into his speed. He'd always prided himself on being the fastest of the triplets and he was not going to give Louie any claim to take away his self-appointed title.

Quickly passing the green clad duck, he gave him his cockiest smirk...and almost ran straight into Donald as he left his study.

"WHOA!"

"WWHAAAAAAAA!" Frozen in place, their uncle's beak and eyes were wide open and his arms were waving around like crazy as he screamed. It was only because of some quick thinking and a pillar that Huey managed to stop them from colliding, his hand latching on to the structure's supporter and swinging himself up to grind across the glassless window. He wobbled a little and almost fell into the courtyard, but a second later he was past Donald and flying back onto the ground, sighing in relief as he wiped sweat from his feathers.

"Man, that was close!" Louie called, quickly following his reckless brother.

"No kidding!"

"HEY YOU PESTS! NO SKATEBOARDS IN THE CASTLE!" Flinching as the echoing walls made Donald's screams even louder than usual, the two turned back to find him in his usual massive temper tantrum form, his feathers turning red with heated rage as he jumped up and down on one foot while throwing his fist about in the air. "YOU'LL HURT SOMEONE AND YOU'RE MARKING THE FLOOR! THIS IS NOT YOUR LITTLE PLAYGROUND!"

"Wow, he's really mad this time." Louie commented, though he clearly had no intention of getting off of his board.

"Maybe all the stress is getting to him." Huey shrugged, feigning nonchalance. Though he had to admit that he was a little unnerved by the sheer intensity of Donald's rage that time. They'd been caught skating around here plenty of times, even in front of the king and queen, and Donald had never sounded so furious with it before. Did the sorceress he'd heard of running around really have him that stressed out, or were they just pushing too far with him lately? Maybe it would be best to tread a little more lightly for a while, let his beloved Uncle D calm down and unwind.

...After the race. Hey, he was already gonna get yelled at again for it, he might as well get the glory of winning.

...

Incessant muttering could he heard constantly by anyone within a thirty foot radius of Donald as he stomped his way through the hallways and through rooms, never once noticing anyone around him. Not that anyone wanted him to notice them; no one wanted his attention when he got into one of those moods. They all made a point of avoiding him, with the only exceptions being Daisy, Goofy, the monarchs and his nephews, the latter of which usually being the cause of it.

If they had, they would have known something wasn't right. After all, how many ducks had what looked like pink glitter scattered and shining on the whites of their eyes?

"Stupid, little pests, when are they going to grow up, making a mess, putting everyone around them in danger or in irritating or embarrassing situations just for their own amusement, I should strike all three of the with a lightning bolt." He didn't even seem to be paying attention to where he was going and yet his feet seemed to be following a very specific course his mind didn't know about. From one place to the next, only focusing on anger that refused to calm. It wasn't until he his feet stopped at the three story high gold doors that guarded the throne room that he finally stopped and looked up, only to glare at it. The smaller door within the big ones, just big enough for the average human that lived in the small towns outside of Disney Town to fit comfortably through, was left ajar. With any other door that would be normal, however, in this case it would normally send of warning signals to anyone who lived in the castle. In Donald's state, it doubled his anger.

"DON'T TELL ME THOSE LITTLE MONSTERS WENT SKATING INTO THE THRONE ROOM!" He roared, turning dark red all over again as he stomped his way to and through the door. "YOU LITTLE BRATS KNOW YOU'RE NOT..." His tirade trailed off however, as his eyes narrowed in on the trespasser and felt his rage mix with surprise. For whipping around from inspecting the thrones' armrests was a being not clad in the reds and greens of his delinquent nephews, but the grey and black figure that had been thieving from the town. "YOU! YOU'VE GOT A LOT OF NERVE COMING HERE SLIMY THEIF!"

"And if you keep screaming like that, you'll be responsible for there being no more castle here." The boy sneered, already set to move. "Oh, and it's Red X, not slimy thief."

Donald wasn't ever one to take smart remarks well and in his current state of mind...well, the screams echoed throughout half the castle, overriding even the thunderous bangs and booms as lightning bolts, fireballs and his infamous Comet spell sent constant flashes of colour decorating the entire room and out the still open door before Red X sprinted out of it and ran through the halls.

_Now this is more like it!_ He cheered in his head as he made a beeline for a side passage and dashed around it, screams and elemental bursts following close behind. This got his adrenaline pumping; this was the excitement he was looking for.

However, as the chase went on, a little worry was starting to creep in on him. The magician's fury had him unleashing dangerous spell after dangerous spell in a place where Red X stood out like a sore thumb. He didn't seem to be tiring at all either and was staying close behind the teenage thief. To make it worse, his screams and destructive spells were drawing the attention of everyone in the castle. It wouldn't be long before those Teen heroes and the King himself got involved and then it would be game over.

_What is with this duck?_ He mentally exclaimed, sparing an incredulous look back a split second before diving into a roll to avoid a particularly large and sharp ice shard. This was the third time he'd had a run in with the magician and he'd never been this vicious! Let alone this destructive. At this rate, if the hallway didn't cave in on him, he'd be surrounded and apprehended, or killed the way the duck was going, in minutes.

That left only two methods of action. The first was to quickly knock out the duck, but that was highly unlikely. He knew through the world's grapevine, and proven by his high position in the castle, that Donald was a well seasoned warrior. He'd know how to hand himself and limit damage taken. Plus, the idea of the mundane fighting spellcasters was to stop them before they could cast any spells. Once they were casting them, especially short, one word spells like the ones Donald was employing, even his equipment would find it near impossible to stop them. It was designed to stop spellcasters like the ones used by the Teen Titan Raven, who's usual spells required three long words minimum, not the quick and short 'Firaga'! That only left option two: find a place that was currently deserted, preferably one filled with lots of doors and passage ways that he could use to escape Donald's sight.

A flash of pink crossed his vision as he made his decision, but he shrugged it off as Donald's work before giving in to a sudden urge to turn left, doubling his efforts to dodge the deadly magic.

Another urge pressured him to turn right halfway down the next corridor and, seeing how the last one had worked so wonderfully, he didn't bother questioning it, quickly making the turn and smiling as the voices and quick steps of everyone alerted to his presence faded away. Aside from the raging duck he just couldn't shake, of course.

Left and right, up stairways, down ramps and flipping over balconies, he pressed on with ease, somehow miraculously weaving around every attempt the soldiers and guards made to cut him off without seeing any more than the occasional animated broom or screaming maid, all of which he had to stick to a wall just to keep the enraged duck from sending them to the emergency room. And the longer it happened, the more suspicious he became of it all.

_Something's up!_ He decided confidently as he jumped on and ran down a long dining table only to grab a side and swing himself into a roll underneath it as Donald scorched it with lightning bolts. _I heard he was a hothead, but this has reached a psychotic level. They'd never give someone like this authority. Hell, they'd never let someone like this into the castle! He's a danger to everyone._

Pulling himself back to his feet as he ran out of table, he charged into the next hallway he'd felt an urge to reach and almost snarled at the sight of not one single inhabitant. The empty path was another thing that had been setting off alarm bells for a while now. He'd moved around the castle too much and Donald was making so much noise that the castle falling down wouldn't block it out. Yes, the castle was big, with a lot of passages, but he should have found more opposition long ago. This was beyond far too lucky. Something or someone had to be manipulating events.

"STOP RUNNING AND FIGHT YOU BIG PALOOKA!" Donald screeched, unleashing a small blizzard only for Red X to swing around a corner and down yet another empty hallway. Swinging around it himself, he thrust his staff back in preparation for another volley of spells, however, just as he reached a door neither of them had noticed, it swung open and a hand shot out, wrapping itself tightly around Donald's neck. "Waa-uh!" Choking, his red face quickly turned blue as he struggled to breathe, the oxygen being firmly cut off from his lungs.

"HAHAHAHA! What luck! My prize comes running right to my door." Pete exclaimed, waving his victim in the air triumphantly as he turned back to the room, drawing Red X' stunned and...surprising irritated attention. This guy had been targeting the irrationally furious duck?

Against his better judgement, Red X ran right back to and through the doorway just in time to see Pete throw Donald into a metal contraption and slam the door shut. Before Red X could even comprehend what was going on, Pete had started another maniacal laugh and hit a big button on the control panel and started the machine. Flashes and small explosions abound from the edges around the machine's door, along with the terrified screams of the duck inside. It only lasted a minute, but with the terrified screams reverberating through Red X' entire being and awakening the conscience that he often found annoying, it felt like a lifetime.

The machine had only settled back down for a few seconds before the door burst open, filling the room with smoke and revealing nothing of Donald visible but a silhouette. However, the lack of vision did nothing to deter the unnerved shivers running up the thief's spine as a low, menacing laugh echoed from the smoking chamber.

"Ha, ha,_ ha_!" The high pitched version of the cliché evil laugh would have been funny if it wasn't coming from one of the Kingdom's greatest protectors or full of pure malice. As the smoke finally cleared, the two intruders finally got to see his form and almost cringed.

_Ok, that's just making a laughing stock out of the dark look._ Red X thought irritably, taking it as personal offense to his own. Donald had gone from the attire of a magician to one similar to a cat burglar. He was wearing a dominantly black spandex bodysuit, complete with what looked like devil horns on his head. The hand and legging pieces of the suit were blue and, along with a stripe around his waist where a belt would go the outfit was finished with a green cape, both colours well onto their way to grey. However, none of that pulled away from the 'evil to the core' look his face was pointing right their way as he laughed.

"Look out kiddies. You're now messing with the Duck of _Doom_! I'll put you all in your place, HAHAHA!"

* * *

**AN:** Hope you enjoyed folks. Chapter 8 is done, so tune in next week for another exciting episode!

hehe, couldn't help myself


	8. Chapter 8

**AN:** Eight weeks, eight chapters. Not a bad run really. Hope you enjoy this edition.

* * *

**Chapter 8**

Jake couldn't believe there was so much carnage throughout the castle! The place looked like a warzone! And to think that it was done by Donald of all people!

Danny, Dewey, Max and Jake were quick to react as the thunder boomed and the heat flared again and again, easily picking up Donald's enraged voice through it all, and had jumped right into action. After all, with such an extreme assault, either Dewey's brothers had finally sent him over the line to sociopath, in which case they really needed to save the troublemaking pair's lives, or someone dangerous had busted into the castle. With the kind of intensity that Donald was going at, he'd put his money on Charmcaster.

However, now he wasn't so sure. In fact, he was beginning to suspect that it actually the first possibility more and more as they went along and whether or not they felt the same, the others all shared his feelings of unnerve. All the damage was clearly done by magic that was deemed Donald's favourite and most used spells and they had all heard his constant screams rumbling the walls. The only things Jake could compare all he'd seen and heard to was a malevolent, wild beast!

"Uncle D's never done anything like this! And we've pushed him pretty damn far before." Dewey called from a little behind, skating after the flyers alongside Max. He wasn't a trained fighter and all three of them had tried to make him stay at the courtyard, but he wouldn't have any of it. He was smart, he had plenty of self developed self defence talent and was the only one of them that ever succeeded in calming his uncle down. Taking that into account, plus the fact that he'd just follow anyway, they really didn't have much choice. Now Jake was actually really glad that he did come along.

"No one from Disney Town has ever gone this far. Not even Pete." Max exclaimed, looking almost as worried as Dewey. "And the magician is always going about not damaging the castle. He once told the king off for damaging a suit of armour before he remembered who he was talking to."

"Even then, he just said 'sorry your majesty...but don't do it again." Dewey added, even mimicking the firm tone Donald had used. "For him to do this..."

"Ok, we need to speed this up." Danny announced, pulling himself back a little and phasing through a startled Max before grabbing him from behind by the armpits and flying him down the hallway as fast as he could, the anthromorphic dog screaming as he did, fumbling to grab his board between his feet.

"How about a little warning next time!" He growled irritably.

"Dewey, you and I are doing something similar." Jake called, moving directly in front of the blue clad duck before pulling up into a loop and coming down behind him, Dewey grabbing his board and jumping onto his back as he swooped by. Unfortunately, the landing wasn't quite perfect "Would you mind moving the board?" He cried as he flailed. The wood's position was right over his wing, making him hit it every time he flapped up and throwing off his stability.

"Sorry." Dewey muttered sheepishly, moving it away and closer to his own chest. He and Danny only waited a few more seconds as he restabilised himself before nodding and taking off as fast as they could go, to the point where Danny would even grab Jake and phase the four of them through walls along the way to the disturbance. They didn't know what was going on, but one thing was certain: time was of the essence.

...

Running ahead of his guards as usual, much to their never ending irritation, Mickey blazed through the trail of destruction, his Keyblade at the ready. Though he was a little conflicted on who he would be using it against. Under any other circumstances, he'd be rushing in to help his good friend, but this time...whatever was going on with the cranky duck had him causing a disaster and if he didn't stop him then Donald was going to do something they might all regret later.

_But that still leaves the source of this._ He reminded himself, glaring as he passed mangled armour and more scorch marked walls. _No one_ had _ever_ made Donald go this ballistic. Whatever happened was as far from good as it got. _Still, at this rate, by the time Donald's done, whoever it is will be lucky to be alive._

"Your Majesty!" Snapping out of his ponderings, Mickey found Huey and Louie moving up quickly beside him, slowing their boards to his speed as they moved. Neither of them had any injures, something that filled him with relief. The Duck Brothers were the only people he knew that could get Donald even close to this furious and as much as he hated to admit it, he'd been afraid that they'd sent him off the deep end. That would have resulted in destroying Donald when he finally calmed down. However, if they were the ones he'd been throwing those spells at, he'd see it.

"Where's Dewey?" He asked quickly wanting to ensure that that piece of relief was justified before getting at anything else. "Do you know what happened?"

"Dewey's with the Guardians and we haven't got a clue." Huey quickly responded with a shake of his head as he flipped his board over a pile of rubble that had once been part of the wall. "We made him...well, mad skating into the hallway and almost colliding with him..." He added sheepishly before quickly ploughing on at the site of Mickey's face. "But nothing like this!"

"He only did his usual yell and fist wave." Louie finished, turning to the king worriedly as the damage only got worse. "Your majesty, he's caused more damage in twenty minutes than we've caused in our entire lives and that's a lot! What could make him do this?"

"I don't know." Mickey shook his head as they swung around another corner. "But you two need to get out of here. This is too dangerous for..." Whatever he was going to say was completely cut off as a thunderous boom and a pair of pained screams echoed throughout the area, followed by an very evil laugh that sounded really familiar to the king and had Huey and Louie wide eyed and terrified.

"Was that Donald?"

"Oh no, don't tell me..."

"Anything but that!"

"What is it?" Mickey asked, more than a little unnerved as they quivered in fear. Despite all his power, none of Donald's nephews had ever been even slightly afraid of him. For them to be shaking worse than an earthquake at just a laugh...

He got his answer as they turned another corner and found Donald. Amidst the rubble that had once been a rather large chunk of the wall of Professor Von Drake's laboratory. Floating in dark spandex.

"He's baaaack." Louie, trying and thoroughly failing to keep his voice light as they came to a stop, both ducks actually starting to shake even worse.

"The greatest villain in the history of Disney Town." Huey whimpered, causing Mickey to stare at them confusedly. "The Duck of Doom." They exclaimed simultaneously, backing a little away. Mickey just mentally shrugged as he turned back to Donald. He could get this back story later.

Hearing his name, the Duck of Doom finally stopped his maniacal laughter and turned to them just as the guards showed up, staring at all of them with a cruel smirk.

"There you are boys! Good, now I can teach what happens when you disobey me!" The boys barely had time to scream as Donald's eyes intensified and a red, psychokinetic blast fired from his head, smashing into everyone and blowing them all away with a chorus of cries of pain. Only Mickey managed to dodge it, leaping into the air before kicking off a wall and grimly aiming his blade for the Duck of Doom.

"Donald, stop this now!"

"King Mickey, NO!" Huey screamed, watching on in horror as the king struck the newly created villain on the shoulder, sending him crashing into the ground with a cry of his own.

"Don't worry, I won't hurt him much. Just enough to stop this." Mickey called back as he rushed at the Duck of Doom again.

"That's not what I'm worried about!" Huey cried, his panic only growing with ever step Mickey took, confusing the king greatly. However, it disappeared an instant later, for as Donald started one of his usual tantrums as he got to his feet and rubbing his shoulder, he grew to twice his original size within seconds. Stunned with disbelief, the mouse king had no defence as the furious duck swung and backhanded him right through a glass filled window. "Your majesty!"

Infuriated, the guards jumped to their feet and charged only for the Duck of Doom to smirk before taking a deep breath. Panicking at the memory of what that meant, Louie grabbed Huey by the arm and threw the pair of them around the corner just as their evil uncle blew gale force winds, reducing the worth of the guards to that of sticks in a hurricane. When they finally crashed into the ground a _long_ way away from where they started, none of them were getting back up.

"Of all the flashbacks to have to live through, why did it have to be this one?" Louie groaned as they pressed their backs against the wall, praying that their uncle wouldn't come after them.

"Yeah, it sucks." Huey agreed shakily as he peeked around the corner to find the Duck of Doom laughing, as he always did when he thought he'd won. However, it was the bulky blob trying to sneak away that caught his attention and filled him with enough anger to, momentarily, forget about being afraid. "And Pete's the one responsible!"

"Pete?" Louie cried, whipping his head around and above Huey's, glaring as he found the cat anthromorph himself. "That no good, snivelling, self serving-"

"Ah-huh! There you are!" Both the brothers and Pete all tensed and screamed at that as the Duck of Doom shot forward. Pete sighed in relief and kept going. The boys however...

"AAAHHHHHH!" They almost passed out as Donald moved in right over them, his hands reaching to grab them by the head.

"Did you think I would forget about yo-ARGH!" Right before he could grab them, two streams struck hard and blew him away, one an eerie, green beam and the other a flamethrower.

"Are you two ok?" Danny cried as the four dropped down, he Max and Jake immediately taking defensive positions in front of the boys as a shaky Dewey helped Louie up.

"Yeah, but you're gonna regret doing that!" Huey cried, his trembling hand pointing to his uncle. Following it back all three fighters gasped, wide eyed and stunned still, as a screaming Duck of Doom got back to his feet and grew once again, this time making it so his muscles really stood out. A very scary thing considering that he was now big enough to hold the teens like action figures. Glaring venomously, he let out another wordless scream and threw a fist down right at them.

"Aww man!" Jake shouted, panickedly taking to the air and off to the right as Danny did the same to the left, barely dodging the attack. Max however, wasn't so lucky.

"ARGH!" Though he'd avoided the punch, its collision with the ground was so great that it caused a powerful aftershock, knocking all four anthromorphs down and shaking the scattered debris. Unfortunately, a large rock was thrown to exactly where Max was, landing hard on his gut, winding him and pinning him helplessly to the ground. Not that the Duck Brothers were much better off, the shake left them all hitting the ground hard and stunned.

"What do we do now?" Danny yelled, quickly turning intangible as another punch came his way. "Hitting him only made him stronger!"

"You're asking me?" Jake snapped as Donald surged at them, almost getting stuck in the bad duck's cape as he forced himself out of the way. "You're the one with the biggest variety of powers and experience taking on giant monsters! How about you try taking him over?"

"Overshadow him? Great idea!" Danny smirked, weaving effortlessly around an oversized back hand and zooming straight into and through Donald's chest.

"What the...? Get out!" Donald shrieked, forcing everyone conscious and capable to flinch and thrust their hands over their ears in pain. Glowing an eerie green, the Duck of Doom grabbed his head and shook it roughly back and forth, his glaring eyes forever flickering back and forth from his natural black to Danny's glowing green. "I. Said. GET OUT!"

His thrashing intensify, he swung his body to and fro, easily destroying another wall in a way that sent debris both outside and in. Watching it, Jake cried out in horror as he watched its target and flew desperately to try and intercept it only to scream as it became apparent that he was too far away to stop it. Unable to move or scream, Max, Huey, Dewey and Louie were only spared their lives from the white, jagged rock making a beeline right for them as series of black blurs appeared and disappeared faster than any of them could see. Only Jake's eyes were capable of watching as a black clad figure appeared out of thin air and struck the debris before him with a red, X shaped explosive from his glove before warping in front of another and repeating the process. It wasn't until the last, life threatening flying rock was turned to dust that he actually stayed in one place long enough for the natives to see him.

"The thief? What are you doing here?" Max cried, glaring as best he could through the pain.

"It's Red X, not thief. And I believe that I just saved your lives." Red X responded, already taking off once again, this time heading for the hole in the wall the natural way. He was gone before anyone could stop him.

Not that they had time to. Bucking around like a mad bull, Donald through himself through the wall and flew into the open sky, eliciting panicked screams from all around the area as his wild form and more falling stone flew dangerously around.

"GET OUT, GET OUT, GET **OUT**!" Red with rage, he scrunched up his face and released a blinding flash of red from his forehead, sending Danny plummeting to the ground.

"AARRGGHH!" BOOM!

Groaning, Danny pulled himself slowly into a sitting position and took stock of his injuries. "Well, that didn't work." He forced out, rubbing his back. Fortunately he hadn't taken much damage, but that didn't mean that his back wasn't driving him crazy. A stinging pain was shot up his spine with every move he made.

"Don't just sit there!" Danny didn't even have time to register what was going on before a red, clawed hand had wretched him out of his newly made Phantom imprint in the ground by his shirt and flown off just seconds before another red laser struck the ground, turning said imprint into a miniature Grand Canyon for whatever bugs hung around.

"You won't get away from ME!" Donald screamed, firing again and again. Bobbing weaving, spinning, Jake did it all and still barely managed to avoid what might as well have been a lightning storm. Suddenly he couldn't thank his Grampa enough for all the time he spent training him in aerial manoeuvring and twisting body parts.

"What happened? I thought you could take control of anyone?" He grunted between twists, spasming as one blast skimmed his hip.

"That's not entirely true. People with overshadowing abilities can fight back if our wills are similarly strong and people with mental powers have significantly stronger defences than anyone. I didn't realise that his mental abilities were so advanced." Danny answered before throwing his hand up and creating a large disc shaped shield above Jake as one of the blasts zipped through the dragon's blind spot and almost struck his head. A spasm rocked his form as the energies collided and the red mental blast danced all around the shield before shattering it a second after they connected. "Argh! He's a lot more powerful than I gave him credit for!"

"Great, so we're back to square one." Jake growled swinging around a tower, hoping for a few seconds of relief.

"Well, we might have one more option I can think of." Danny stated right as a loud scream heralded another thunderous boom as Donald ploughed right through the tower and out directly above them.

Not wasting time explaining, Danny quickly created three clones, all three glowing icy blue and firing blue beams straight at the Duck of Doom.

"WWAAAAHAAAA!" Donald screamed long and loud as the beams struck home and spread ice all over his body, starting from each limb and ending with his head before he dropped straight towards the ground.

Not wanting to free him, Danny and clones quickly spun around and created an ice slide for Donald to ride down into a careful, sliding stop on the ground before unleashing their ice beams again and thickening the ice prison.

"You really think that will work?" Jake asked sceptically, raising an eyebrow as he stared at the furious face behind the frozen water. Donald's eyes were still moving and they looked far from happy.

"To finish this? No." Danny shook his head as he finished his work, reabsorbing his clones as he did. "But it should buy us a few seconds to think of something else."

"You have to find the origin of his anger!" Dewey shouted, drawing their attention back to the hole they'd come from and the Duck Brothers. "He won't stop until what he wants is done, even if it's not possible anymore."

"So you better hope he hasn't destroyed it yet." Huey called in agreement.

"So what would he be angry about?" Jake cried exasperatedly, throwing his arms into the air. "He came out blood thirsty!"

"No he didn't!" Danny stated. You could almost see the light bulb appear over his head as he turned to Jake. "He began destroying everything in sight before the Duck of Doom thing. He was going nuts attacking the thief, right? And someone had to have put him into the machine!"

"So we need to find that Red X guy?" Jake cried as the Duck of Doom started visibly vibrating. Cracks were already appearing in the ice and deepening fast and audibly. "We don't have time to find the world's sneakiest thief! Donald will be free any second."

"He, uh...might be mad at us too." Louie admitted hesitantly, holding up his board sheepishly. "We were skating where we shouldn't and he and Huey almost had a collision."

"That would explain why he was attacking them when we showed up." Danny groaned, rubbing his temples. This was bad. Like Jake said, finding Red X before Donald was freed was impossible and the chances of finding him before Donald wrecked the entire castle wasn't much better. On top of that, if such a powerful enemy had a bone to pick with a pair of civilians and then that gave them the extra job of protecting them specifically. More guards were showing up now, but none of them stood a chance against the rampaging duck and were basically just more bodies to get hurt. They were no doubt serious protectors, but in a world so free of dark intentions, there was no way that they were trained for something like this! It was amazing that the King, Donald and Goofy would know how to handle it and that was only because of their frequent travels around the dimensions. That being said, he doubted any of them, or even Jake and himself for that matter, had the ability to outdo the powers of a temperamental villain who's powers are fuelled and enhanced BY anger. The Duck of Doom's powers broke a law of physics even magic had no hope of breaking! There was probably more to it then they knew, but it basically made him not only self sustaining, but self enhancing! How were any of them meant to fight that?

Sighing, Danny conceded to the only possible solution, though it was far from desirable. It would put the boys in serious danger and leave their side weakened, but there was nothing else he could do.

"Do you guys think you can resolve his grievance with you?" He asked, looking at each duck in turn, Dewey included. He'd heard and seen enough to know that Dewey would be left off the hook. The boys' closeness and similar natures had them grouped together whenever even just one of them did something wrong.

"Um...maybe." Huey muttered, frowning doubtfully at the ground.

"Alright, then I have an idea." Danny declared, forcing all of his doubt back. Right now, the group needed someone looking confident and in control. To be the leader they could look up to and draw confidence from. It was the only way that they'd get through this. "Jake, your eyes, ears and nose are far superior to a human's right?"

"You know it." Jake smirked, feeling a tinge of pride. It was the stupidest moment to worry about egos, he knew, but it sure made him feel good to hear Danny admitting to be inferior to him in something, even if it was just senses.

"Then you have the best chance of finding Red X. Track him down and do whatever it takes to get him here. We can't stop this without knowing what he did and resolving it. Huey and Louie will try to resolve Donald's issue with them while I stop Donald from causing too much pain and destruction."

"You really think that you can hold him off for that kind of time without making him world size?" Jake asked, irritable and incredulous. Danny was biting off more than he could chew and if he failed they could all suffer for it big time.

"You got a better idea?" Danny shot back, crossing his arms. "`Cause I'm open for suggestions."

Jake just glared at the wall at that, moodily conceding defeat. Neither of them wanted this, he knew, but it was the only option open for them. They needed Red X now and the guards couldn't find him before the chaos. Jake was the only one that had a chance and Danny, as wounded as he was, was the only one with the powers needed to stay alive in a long term battle with someone like the Duck of Doom.

"Be as quick as you can" Danny ordered as Jake remained silent before surprising the dragon a second later by placing a hand on his shoulder. A little thrown off by the feel of the touch, gentle and reassuring in comparison to the firmness of his last demand, Jake turned to find the Phantom with a look of utmost faith and confidence. "I can't handle Doom Bill down there without you for long. So please, find him fast."

"You got it." Jake grinned before taking off as fast as he could. It was strange how one look could affect him, but Danny altered his entire mood with that a few words.

He knew he was being stupid and self-centred, that there were a lot more pressing matters that should be taking up the entirety of his attention, but he couldn't help it. The touch, the look, the words, it all came together and told Jake one thing: that Danny Phantom saw him as a worthy hero, believed in his ability to stand beside him, and was counting on his help. Despite everything that was going on today, that made him feel pretty good about himself.

Now he just had to prove that that trust wasn't misplaced.

...

The beginnings of a small frown crossed Charmcaster's face as she watched the play by play, monitoring the actions of all her little pawns. The Duck of Doom was doing marvelously, but the rest was beginning to trouble her. The heroes may have found a way to shut him down and Pete was proving to be a bit of a disappointment. The bumbling fool knew that the superhero machine had the ability to give anyone super powers and he didn't think to use it on himself? And on top of that, he left it completely intact, so it could be used against them? Let's not forget that he then crawled away like a coward and allowed the entire group to focus on the Duck of Doom either, a situation that could cause this plan to go south either by his defeat or his rage making him too powerful and destroy everything, even her!

"Perhaps the anger enhancement spell was bit too overpowered." She muttered to herself as she watched the screeching duck suddenly burst from his ice prison with a flash of red and glare venomously up at the ghost boy. She'd had to use it to get him to Pete and it had worked wondrously in quickly giving him the strength to fight two Guardians and the King, but it was running its course a bit too long. And once it was cast, she couldn't stop it.

"Then the best solution is to end this now." Her mind set, she altered the visual spell to find a reasonably safe place to teleport in before disappearing in a flash of pink. She wouldn't get a better opportunity to kill a Guardian. Jake might be tricky in the vicinity of the unpredictable thief, but Danny was pretty much all alone with the most powerful villain this world had ever seen. And with her joining the fray, the word hybrid was guaranteed to be removed from his name.

* * *

**AN:** Sorry for the inconvenience everyone, but unfortunately there won't be another chapter next week. It's not started yet. A personal issue showed up, the kind that has you desperate for external distractions, not letting fantasy run wild. I should have the next one ready the week after though.

So I'll see you in a fortnight


	9. Chapter 9

**AN:** And we're back. The next chapter's already done and just needs proof reading too, so enjoy and see ya next week.

* * *

**Chapter 9**

Well, despite the fact that he'd been attacked himself, Pete had to admit that this plan was working pretty well. The castle was steadily becoming a mess, the King was who knew where, the dragon boy had flew the coop and the phantom was guaranteed to be crushed at any time now. After all, what could the ghosty do to a guy to wild to overshadow and forever growing stronger when hit?

"That machine was the best thing Professor Gobbledegook ever made." He snickered as Donald took a deep breath and blew, sending a screaming Phantom flying hard into a tower before he could turn intangible. "Why with the power that comes from that thing, I could..."

You could almost see the light bulb spring to life over his head as realisation struck him. Why should he let Donald have all the power? That machine could give power to anyone, why not take advantage of it? One stop into that machine and he could become more powerful than even Maleficent!

"Why didn't I think of it before?" He asked himself as he gleefully made his way back to the lab. Within minutes, he would be as powerful as the Duck of Doom. "Look out world, you're about to meet your new master."

Charging back through the destroyed lab doorway, he threw himself into the machine and hit the button before slamming the door shut. His laughter echoed throughout the area, overlapping every other sound in what was safely declared the strangest lab in the world.

...

He hated to admit it, but Danny had just about completely ran out of ideas. He had used every power he had in his arsenal, with the sole exception being the wail, and not one of them slowed Donald for more than a few seconds anymore. And while he'd stopped growing in size now, he still was growing stronger with every ecto ball and block of ice to touch him, hell, even the fact that Danny dodged his own assaults were strengthening his rage amplified powers. If they didn't sate his anger soon, there wouldn't be a castle to save or anyone to heal.

"Uncle D, calm down, we'll...we'll clean up all the skid marks we made around the castle ourselves!" Huey shouted hurriedly, albeit flinching as if his promise was utter horrendous.

"Yeah, yeah! And we'll never skate through the halls again! We'll leave it out in the courtyard." Louie agreed, nodding hastily and sounding much more genuine.

"And no more pranks within the castle walls!" Dewey added as Donald threw another oversized punch at Danny, the ghost boy barely managing to put a shield up in time only for the concussive force to shatter it and strike him with the resulting shockwave, sending him plummeting to the ground with an ear piercing scream.

A loud, panicked gasp left Huey's lips as he watched, but he settled down a few seconds later as he watched. It was convincing, but the Duck Brothers were masters at misdirection. Danny had control of his decent. He could stop at any time he wanted, but he was making it look like he'd been struck, Huey was sure of it. He was proven right as his critical saw him suddenly bounce up with a pained cry about an inch before hitting the ground before rolling across it into a relatively painless, but painful looking, roll.

It was all on purpose. He made it look like Donald had struck him to ensure that his actions didn't neutralise any of their promises. Clever, tricky. Huey suddenly liked him even more.

"And we'll...help clean up the mess you've made too." Huey shouted, hating himself more with every word. More work? Man he was desperate. _Hopefully I can break the promise when he's back to normal._ He thought moodily as his brothers groaned their acceptance.

"AAAHHH!" All three boys screamed as Donald moved in close, glaring at all three of them. This was it. Danny was already close enough to intervene if Donald attacked again, completely unnoticed by the Duck of Doom, but if it hadn't worked then they had no hope of doing anything but delaying the inevitable destruction.

Donald watched each of them with intense, suspicious eyes for a few moments before seeming to come to a decision. However, just as he opened his mouth, a black ball flew between them and exploded, eliciting cries from all four ducks as they were consumed in what looked like a giant dome filled with pure darkness, blinding everyone within. Beyond it, Danny openly gaped and panicked. The darkness was almost solid, he couldn't see anything but pitch black around the entire thing.

"HAHAHAHA! Hidden in shadows, the rogue racer reigns!" Scowling as an annoyingly familiar voice struck his ears, Danny turned his head to find himself tensing at the sight of another large, bulky, tights clad figure. Laughing again, the figure leapt out of the shadows. "I am Captain Dark!"

Strangely enough, the recognition was instant. One look at him and Danny instantly remembered the cat anthromorph before him. This guy had once had the audacity to suck Danny into one of his own Fenton Thermoses!

However, this time, he was wearing a black body suit with two red outlined, purple zigzags going up his body. His arms were sleeveless, but had thick, metal rings around each upper arm, red fabric bands around the forearms and thick black and red gloves on each hand. Purple cape hung from his shoulders, meeting a purple headpiece that covered the back of his skull and came down his forehead to just between his eyebrows, with a red, U-turning arrow sticking up from it. Black boots with purple zigzags covered his feet and the look was completed by a purple, metal belt with belt buckle depicting an oddly shaped CD.

Oh, and there was one more difference from before. This time, he seemed to be outlined by a black glow.

"Oh great, just what we need." Danny groaned, staring him down as he landed in the courtyard. "Like Doom Poultry wasn't enough of a problem!"

"Hahaha! Them's the breaks kid. Now, prepare to face the greatest villain you've ever seen." Captain Dark laughed, only to be drowned out and shocked into stumbling to the ground as Donald and the boys screamed. Red light randomly flashed out of the surface of the darkness, followed quickly by thundering thumps and crashes as solid stone shattered.

"YOU GOOD FOR NOTHING BRATS TRIED TO TRICK ME AGAIN!"

"NO! I swear, we had nothing to do with this!"

"Why would we? We can't see either!"

"Uncle D, settle down, you'll kill us all!"

"I think I already did." Danny glared down at the unimpressively shaking 'super villain'. "And you just went and made him angrier, which by the way, is bad for ALL OF US! even YOU!"

"Not while he's focusing on those boys." Captain Dark retorted, regaining some of his confidence as Donald continued pounding blindly away after his nephews. "And you of course." He added with a smirk, creating another ball of darkness in his hand. Danny was in the air the second it left his hand, easily flying through the following darkness and back into daylight.

Captain Dark followed quickly after, using trees and stone walls to propel himself much higher than he naturally could, and tossed another ball, creating a third pitch black area in the sky, this one becoming a full sphere.

"Do you really think that you can stop me just by turning out the lights?" Danny shouted, a green ball of his own growing big and bright as he raised his hands over his head and tossed it down. "I fly right out of it!"

"AAHH!" Captain Dark screamed as it came down. Still on his way back down to the ground, he was helpless, unable to escape. The ball hit home and doubled the speed of his fall as he screamed, crashing hard into the ground and getting partially buried as one of the larger pant and stone structures crumbled onto him. When he did finally pull his head out of the dirt, Danny couldn't help but laugh as he spat and spluttered, wiggling his body like a worm.

Unfortunately, his amusement left him oblivious to the giant duck shooting right at him, his fist pulled back and ready.

"DANNY!" Turning at the sound of Huey's panicked scream, Danny's eyes went wide as he found the evil duck just in time to take the fist right in the face.

"AAARRGGHH!" His pained scream was quickly drowned out as his already injured back found a castle wall and crashed right through it, this time the hard way.

"This is hopeless!" Dewey cried, pulling at his feathers as he watched Danny struggle to stand. They were on opposite sides surrounding the courtyard, but the struggle was still more than a little noticeable and his grunts and cries echoed throughout the area.

"Uncle D alone was too much." Louie exclaimed, breathing heavily. He'd almost been crushed in the Duck of Doom's last tirade far too many times. The blows had grazed his feathers repeatedly and he'd been hit by flying debris so much that his clothes were ripped all over, highlighting a few large cuts and red patches of feathers. "Throwing in Pete with instant night tricks? Danny doesn't stand a chance and Uncle D won't listen to us at all now."

"That settles it!" Huey grunted, his face hardening with determination. "He needs help, the guards are useless and the King and Jake are who knows where. There's only one thing we can do."

"Oh no, you're not- WHOA!" Louie cried as Huey jumped to his feet and ran, grabbing Louie by the arm along the way. "THIS IS A BAD IDEA!"

"This is the only idea!" Huey snapped, Dewey nodding in agreement as they ran into the lab.

"But every time we use super powers, we screw up big time!" Louie argued, struggling Huey's grasp as Dewey reset the machine to good. The last thing they needed was its negative affects turning them into three more villains.

"How the heck could things possibly get any worse than they already are?" Huey cried, pushing him into the machine, stumping his brother enough to lessen his resistance. "The castle's half destroyed, Jake'll be gone for who knows how long, the King hasn't been seen since he was thrown out like trash and Danny's about to get killed!"

"Well, yeah...but-"

"No buts, here we go!" Dewey declared, finishing with the control panel and ploughing into both brothers, throwing all three into the machine and sealing the door just as the lights and bangs started for the third time that day. However, this time, when the door opened, those exiting didn't exit the chamber dramatically or with menacing laughter. This time, the newly super powered anthromorphs left the room before even the smoke cleared.

...

Not managing to get back on his feet in time, Danny opted to phasing through the floor as Donald's mind beam came his way. Catching himself and floating in midair as the shattered floor fell through him, Danny forced himself through the whole and led the Duck of Doom back out towards the centre of the courtyard. It was all he could do to keep the mage turned villain from killing the people still occasionally running through the halls. The castle was simply too big to escape quickly and they were right in the middle of it after all.

_I'm not going to get anywhere._ He scowled to himself, breathing hard and simply letting gravity do all the work in dodging the next punch, dropping into one of Captain Dark's darkened areas. He could barely move his body without it screaming in agony and his strength was giving out. He had hoped that the duck brothers would have been able to at least lessen the rage and intensity of the situation, but Captain Dark had ensured that wasn't going to happen. _Right before running back to his little hidey hole apparently. Where'd he-_ "Argh!"

"Haha!" Captain Dark cheered, planting a fist into Danny's gut. "Stupid boy, did you really think you could hide from me? I can see through the dark plain as day!"

"Actually...I thought you were...being a coward!" Danny wheezed, falling alongside the descending Captain. A fact that Captain Dark quickly became terrified about as Danny returned the punch with one of his own. And weakened bad or not, a punch from him wearing the new ghost gauntlets was _painful_!

His pain-filled screams muffled as his hands flew to the fist shaped dent on his face, Captain Dark hit the ground hard once again before rolling into another dark patch.

Catching himself just before his body made another crater in the once beautiful courtyard, Danny looked up only to scream at the sight of Donald's clasped fists coming down on him. Unable to work up the needed speed to escape, he turned himself intangible again and phased through the assault before adding invisibility and flying up and away, hoping that he could find some seemingly nonexistent safe distance.

"WHERE DID YOU GO!" If his entire body was killing him, he'd had flinch as the Duck of Doom's screech pierced his ears. It made nails on a chalk board sound like an angelic choir for crying out loud!

_Still, screaming is the only way that he can hurt me right now._ Danny reminded himself, slowly letting out a deep breath and giving his body a moment to rest as he went over his options. Invisibility was a power he'd had no intention of using at all before, anyone could tell you that it would only make Donald angrier, but then all his plans had failed spectacularly. The only thing that would have worked without Red X was completely ruined by that joke of a super villain. So what could he do now? Even if he could think of a useable method, his body wasn't going to be able to handle anymore strain. Was there anything he could still do?

"There you are!" Freezing cold as the low hiss met his ears, Danny came crashing back to reality to see the Duck of Doom's yellow glowing eyes looking right at him. Before he could even get over the stunned sensation, red light burst to life on Donald's forehead and fired right at him, aiming directly for his heart. "Bye bye ghost boy."

"Nah Uncle D, I think not!" Startled again by the deeper, but familiar voice, Danny turned to find second beam coming right at him, this one a bright blue. The blue beam struck first, but instead of hurting him, it yanked him hard and fast back the way it came, with more than enough speed to easily avoid its red counterpart and right to the source. "Are you alright Danny Phantom?"

"Yeah...I'm no worse off anyway." Danny muttered slowly, taking in his saviour. It was clearly Dewey, but the guy had made some changes to his appearance. The tights and cape in two different shades of blue with a picture of a brain planted on his chest were more than enough to gape, but what really drew in the ghost boy's attention was the comically oversized head. "Thanks for the save...Brain Boy?"

"You are welcome." He exclaimed dramatically before an irritated yell drew their attention back to Donald. Flying and levitating away respectively as Donald's yell unleashed a fierce gale their way, Danny and Brain Boy regrouped closer to the ground as a green blur shot over their heads. Louie, looking much taller than before, not to mention bearing muscle mass that Danny was sure you could only obtain using a lot of steroids, intercepted the Duck of Doom as he went after Danny and struck him hard with brutal right hook to the shoulder, sending the Doom bringer spinning and screaming into the far side of the castle, landing into it face first.

"HA! Even the Duck of Doom is hard pressed to neutralise the mammoth muscles of Captain Muscle." Louie bragged, his voice coming out just as deep as Brain Boy's.

"Yeah, but he'll just get madder at the result." Danny muttered as Captain Muscle hit the ground before them. "So you guys went through the superhero machine again? Then where's..."

Danny's question fizzled out as an incredibly fast red blur and a sudden gust of wind blew right by, sweeping both Brain Boy and Captain Muscle's capes over their heads as it shot straight into a dark patch. Not a second later...

"ARGH!" Captain Dark came rolling out like an out of control ball, spitting up dirt and grass, along with quickly cut off screams, whenever his mouth left the ground. And there, standing on top of him and keeping him rolling was Huey. Aka, the Really Incredibly Fast Guy.

His costume was mostly the same as the others in design, though in two shades of red as opposed to Dewey and Louie's respective blues and greens and emblazoned with a foot instead of the brain or muscular arm, however, his was a little more unique. Unlike the other two, he had no cape, but had a mask covering his face, complete with lightning bolts coming off from his ears. In addition to that, he also stood out simply because, unlike the others, visually, his only change was his clothes. No oversized body parts, leaving him lithe and streamlined in his tights. Perfect for a speedster.

"We have come to assist you in any way we can." Huey declared, following his brothers' example with the deepened voice before returning to his normal tone. "Though we're not sure exactly what to do with Uncle Donald."

"Pete isn't a problem though." Brain Boy smirked, bringing his hands up to his huge brain. Another psychokinetic beam surged from his mind and surrounded Captain Dark's body, making it rise the second The Really Incredibly Fast Guy jumped off.

"HEY! Put me down, put down!" Captain Dark shouted, his voice mixed with fear and indignation. "Do you know who I am? I am Captain D-brhghr!" His cry was effectively cut off as Brain Boy did as asked and let him go. Down and hard into the ground, his upper half shoved into the ground. A few muffles and his flailing legs were all that was left of him on the surface.

"Great, one down." Danny grunted as the booming crashes of a rockslide and furious scream signalled the return of the Duck of Doom. Looking him over, Danny's wounds screamed at him for shivering at the sight of the duck's growing muscles. "And one psychotic duck to go."

"What do you propose we do?" Captain Muscle asked, his deepened voice reverting a little to his normal one as he turned to Danny nervously. "Fighting and avoid both make him angrier and he won't listen to us."

"Doubt he'll listen to that Red X guy either." Brain Boy agreed before, "AAHHH!" the scattered in terror as a huge, red beam struck the ground where they'd been standing and had Captain Dark's legs moving like crazy as it burnt his big butt.

Glaring at the thought as his dash had him jerking at a fresh load of pain, Danny made up his mind. Nothing else had worked, so as much as he hated what they were about to do, it looked like it was the only option and they had to do it now, before Donald became any stronger. "We have to take him down! Give him your best shots, then get out of the way."

The looks that got in return almost had him giving up on the plan. Almost. The boy's all gaped at him as they dodged assaults. They quickly turned hesitant and concerned before another scream from Donald and a huge fist that was intended for Brain boy blew right through another part of the wall had them all hardening into looks of grim determination. They couldn't let this go on any longer. Not if they could stop it. Neither they, nor Donald, would ever be able to forgive themselves if their lack of action got innocents still no doubt hiding in the castle hurt.

Brain Boy struck first, his psychokinetic energy latching on to all the fresh debris falling around Donald and slamming it all as hard as he could into the rogue duck, blowing him hard back toward the centre of the area.

"WAAAAAHHHH!" Fast Guy went next, sending Donald into an uncontrollable spin as he ran in circles and created a funnel, spinning his oversized uncle in place as fast as a windmill in a hurricane before taking off, leaving the ground clear right as Captain Muscle had jumped above Donald and slammed his clasped hands down as hard as he could into Donald's still spinning abdomen.

"AARRGGGGHHH!" The force of his own spinning momentum and the blow from the good guys' heavy hitter had him crashing to the ground with rumbling crash comparable to a small earthquake, with a small shockwave quickly following as Captain Muscle followed him down and crashed both feet into Donald's chest before jumping away again, leaving him completely clear for Danny.

The ghost boy took a split second to admire the T Squad's handiwork as he took a deep breath. They'd hurt and stunned the Duck of Doom good, leaving him defenceless against Danny's strongest attack like he'd hoped, but they'd even managed to land him squarely in the courtyard, away from all the castle walls and inhabitants. In other words, there was no chance that anyone still in the castle would get caught in the crossfire.

_Now, to end this._ tensing his body ready for the pain that was sure to come, even without the use of his limbs, he opened his mouth to unleash his ghostly wail...only to be stopped just as the first waves appeared in the back of his throat and replaced with a blood curdling scream as what looked like pink electricity suddenly danced all over his body.

"GGGAAAAARRRHHHH!"

"Phantom!" The T Squad gasped, looking on in horror as the energy pulsed and exploded, catapulting across the area and crashing down hard. A pained whimper left his lips as he came to a stop, but that took up everything he had left. He managed his eyes to flicker open for just long enough to watch as a laughing Charmcaster came down from the castle roof and landed before him before _Aww, great_ crossed his mind and his vision darkened once more.

"Who's that?"

"The evil sorceress, duh!"

"Then take no prisoners baby brothers!"Glaring and growling, Brain Boy, Captain Muscle and Fast Guy charged right at her, disregarding their ranting evil uncle completely. However, the whole thing proved futile as what looked like a pink energy crystal flashed up around Charmcaster and her prey, sending all three boys rebounding back.

"Hmm, I guess I should have known that you three would resort to using the machine yourselves." She mused as she watched them bounce and roll across the ground, groaning with every thump. "Impressive powers, but still, with only one each, you hardly compare to my targets, let alone me."

"Overconfidence gets you killed." Fast Guy grunted, pulling himself back to his feet.

"So does ignoring a super villain you managed to tick off." Charmcaster retorted smugly with a casual wave behind them, right as they became bathed in shadow. Gulping loudly, all three super bros slowly turned to find themselves under the undivided attention of a red faced Duck of Doom.

"Oh crud." Fast Guy squeaked.

"Yep, that about covers it." Dewey whimpered, raising his arms up protectively.

"YOU GOOD FOR NOTHING **BRATS!" **The Duck of Doom's roar was so intense that every damaged stone around the courtyard actually broke right off and fell to the ground as he slammed a fist down at his nephews.

Too terrified to move in time, it was only Captain Muscle's quick instincts that saved their lives. Crouching low for just a second, he jumped up as hard as he could and met the fist with both of his open palms. He wasn't nearly strong enough to stop it, but he did manage to slow its decent enough for the Really Incredibly Fast Guy to run in a circle again and create a funnel of wind resistance. Between the two of them, they could just manage to hold the pressing fist up, though it was still slowly descending, already forcing Captain Muscle onto his knees.

"Brain Boy, hurry!" Captain Muscle groaned as he was forced to bend down and allow his back to take some of the pressure off his hands. "We won't last much longer under here."

"Don't worry, I just need a few seconds." Brain Boy replied, his psycho beam already blanketing the ground.

_And that's all the time I need._ Charmcaster sneered, her hand glowing in a pink ball as she aimed it for the unconscious Phantom.

"NO, stop!" Fast Guy cried, hyperventilating as he watched on helplessly. A large cloud of dirt was already moving skyward and quickly struck home in Donald's eyes, causing him to fling himself back and screaming as he tried to get the stinging particles away, but even if the shield wasn't there, even at his best speed, it was already too late for them to save Danny.

However, just as Charmcaster was casting her deadly spell, a flash of spinning gold and silver came out of nowhere and shattered her crystal shield in an instant. Losing her focus on her spell, Charmcaster was just saved from the projectile by the instinct to duck, only for a small black blur to come rolling from the same direction and kick her squarely in the cheek. "ARGH!"

It didn't stop there either. Without breaking stride, the blur continue spinning upward into the air using Charmcaster's face as a springboard until it was up at eye level with the Duck of Doom. Just as the duck's vision returned and he looked like he was about to make a meal out of the blur, a flash of white light appeared alongside the blur and revealed the gold and silver item from before. Only now, it filled Fast Guy with relief and joy liked he'd never felt before as he recognised it and the blur by extension. "KING MICKEY'S BACK!"

"NO!" Charmcaster shrieked, looking up furiously as the King uncurled himself.

"Sleepaga!"

"AARRRHHHH...mmmm." The effect was instant. One second the Duck of Doom was roar like primal beast and the next, a wave of the Keyblade, a few sparkles of white magic, his eyes closed and he slumped to the ground, snoring the whole way. By the time King Mickey's feet met the grass, the Duck of Doom had curled up peacefully and was had even shrunk to half his size. A few seconds later, the sound of a skateboard rolling over pavement met their ears and they turned to find a freed Max scooping up Danny on his way over to the king and the finally fully shrunk Donald.

"This is over, sorceress." Mickey exclaimed fiercely as the happy T Squad gathered alongside him and Max. "I will not have you or any of your pawns risking the lives of my people any longer."

Charmcaster simply glared vilely with glowing eyes in response, staring down the heroes as they glared right back. She had no intention of stopping now. She was but one spell from ensuring that the Valour Guardians could never be fully formed again and rip the ghost connections out completely. Nobody, not even this group of supernatural, anthromorphic heroes was going to stand in her way.

Even Max and the T Squad could sense the magic thick in the air at this point, stewing into a storm. No matter what numbers, skills or abilities each side had, one thing was clear to all: the next round was going to be hard, fast and incredibly dangerous.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

To say that Gohan was annoyed was an understatement. He'd spent hours searching, sneaking his way past the cops guarding the crime scene, finding a hidden labyrinth that he could never hope to accurately navigate and still had nothing to show for it.

He grown so used to his targets being easy to track down. The people he always looked for either caused a lot of destruction, had very familiar energy signatures and predictable locations or had power levels that dominated wherever they were. Between his energy senses, his logic and his higher than human hearing, he'd never had any trouble before. Unfortunately, this case had proven that magic made all of his advantages useless.

"I was really hoping to resolve this by now." He mumbled irritably as he flew through the darkened sky. The sun had long gone down and that ended it. His time was up, he couldn't stop this before others were risked. Dark Dragon had to be planning something with the rest of the dragons, it was the only reason he would risk doing anything with all of them in one place. That left him with only one option. Go and warn them.

"Wish I could stop to eat beforehand." He couldn't quite stop the pout that formed as the thought crossed his mind. What could he say, he was a Saiyan hybrid and hadn't eaten since before he left to see Piccolo. It was amazing that he didn't stop to pig out along the way, he deserved the right to pout like a child at his rumbling belly.

...

As it was, he couldn't quite stop himself from buying a packet of potato chips and munched away happily as he flew up over the mountain. He enjoyed them so much that he didn't even notice that he'd reached his destination until he flew headfirst into it.

"Ow! Who put a wall in thin...oh, I made it to the mountain." He grinned sheepishly, rubbing his head as he stared up at the giant temple before him. To be fair, the temple did blend into the mountain, made of stone and most of the structure being a similar colour. He just...didn't notice the mountain. "Yeah, I am _not _telling _anyone_ that. Ever!"

Fighting down the embarrassment, he focused back on what he was there to accomplish and let his senses flare, scanning the area. Not that he really needed to, the moment he shut up, he could hear the soft, merry rumblings of a rather large crowd. All his senses really did was confirm that there were hundreds inside and none of them human. Every energy signature was unique, but all held some consistencies. All humans for example had the human base that was extended on, through a family bloodline level and then a more unique level. Everyone within the temple had the same fiery feeling to them. One that seemed...strangely familiar!

For the second time within twenty four hours, the shadowy form a dragon crossed his mind and as it did, Gohan stunned himself as "Jake" slipped from his lips. It just...felt right, like he just knew that that was the shadowed figure's name. Like...he really knew and cared about the dragon boy he was trying to find.

"Strange." He muttered, staring at his hands and startled to find his energy active and swirling in his palms like a whirlpool. He must have done it subconsciously. And again, it brought what felt like another distant memory to his mind. Him, standing in a metal room, creating the exact same swirling energy pattern as...a red dragon added fire to it. "Ki fire. I've met Jake Long before!" He cried, his brain fully accepting it as undeniable truth, and as it did, more images shot through his head, both of the boy and the dragon. Protecting Kim Possible and another familiar boy from white husks, fighting what looked like a glowing knight, swooping around like a show off having the time of his life, dragging Gohan to a school performance so he could check out Jake and his friends in a rap performance and joking around in what looked like a satellite.

Jake was energetic, excitable, a little too girl crazy, cocky, loyal, easily bored and always there if you needed someone to make you laugh, whether it was intentional or due to his flair for dramatics.

"I know you." He muttered, baffled by the simple fact before his lips curled into a grin. "I'll have figure out how after I've saved your butt my friend."

...

"Master, all of the dragons are in place." Chang informed Dark Dragon as she landed on the ledge before him. "They are only waiting confusedly and irritably for the arrival of the Long family before continuing with the traditional ceremony."

"Perfect." Dark Dragon smirked. Despite the disappearance of Charmcaster, the unexpected appearance of the Super Saiyan, the American Dragon still assumed to be alive and the Phantom discovering their battle, the goals of the plan were still right on schedule. Jake was gone and the Dragon Council had no idea anything was amiss. They were free to start phase two, which when completed would send the entire Order into chaos and leave them hell bent on revenge. With a few tweaks and manipulated motives, he would then be able to push them further to his way of thinking from there and before they knew it, they would assist him in taking their rightful place as rulers of the world once more.

Hate and chaos made invaluable allies.

"So, is this the part where I go in?" Bananas mumbled nervously. Uncomfortable outside his own skin and honestly terrified by what he was about to do, he had scratched and fiddled with every scale on his body. Originally, the plan didn't seem that bad. For a start, Charmcaster would be alongside him, ensuring his safety throughout the whole thing. On top of that, the real American Dragon would already be dead, meaning no one would be coming after him for revenge. They'd simply forever search for the dragon that they'll never find. And of course, every plan sounds a hell of a lot more promising in the planning stages than it ever did once it started its motion. Even without the unexpected variables and changes, the closer you got to a certain part, the more scary and dangerous it looked.

"Precisely." Dark Dragon nodded, roughly dragging their sphinx hair net forward and thrusting the ends into Bananas' hand, the unconscious Loa Shi whimpering as the jagged rocks cut his skin. Not a second later, a dark flash covered his newly freed claw and dissipated to reveal a clear, colourless orb containing wild blue and black magic under a layer of fog. "Say your lines, kill the old man and then throw this at the Dragon High Council. The explosion will kill them and anyone near them and the fog released at the same time will infect every true dragon in the area."

"Suppressing all forms of common sense and order while amplifying their rage and need for vengeance, right?" Bananas asked, taking great care so his dragon claws didn't destroy the orb and kill them all.

"Technically, it suppresses everything and completely unleashes their primal, beastly urges indefinitely, but yes, that is the idea." The Dark Dragon explained gleefully. "And with a target they will never find, the effects will never entirely be resolved. They will be prone to violence and easy to sway to my side in the long run. Even before then, their actions will begin the recreation of this world to one of my rein."

"And you will get me out of there before they can hurt me, right?" Bananas asked, desperation flickering through his voice. "Even without Charmcaster, I will be safe, right?"

"Of course, my loyal servant." Dark Dragon nodded. "Your escape is detrimental to my plan. They must never catch the 'dragon' responsible for this 'tragedy'."

"Oh, good." Bananas sighed, though his body didn't show any lessening of nerves.

"Now, let us begin before the Council becomes too suspicious." With that, black and purple poured out from Dark Dragon's claw with a fiery crackle, surrounding and consuming the fake dragon and his captive. When it all disappeared a second later, both were gone.

Sharing a victorious smirk with her master, Chang spread her wings and flew off back the way she came, her eyes glowing with mixing blue and black.

The Dark Dragon on the other hand, didn't move a muscle, his own eyes glowing to match Chang's. He would watch everything through her eyes, far from the excellent range of dragon eyesight. Chang was much smaller and be mistaken for another random member up in the air as she allowed him to see the fruits of their labour and know when the time came to pull Bananas away.

He will see all of it, had already caused all of it, and not one good dragon would ever know that he was even there.

...

"It is not like Loa Shi to be late." A dark skinned man at the High Council's table said quietly, sharing his troubled thoughts with the rest of his colleagues. "The American Dragon might be known to procrastinate, But Loa Shi and Haley are always punctual."

"And we cannot wait for them any longer." A woman on the far side of the table stated. "The lunar eclipse will not last much longer. If we d not start the toast now, we may still be inside the temple when it ends and be trapped within it for a thousand years."

"You are both right of course." The high chairman sighed, staring up at the moon. "We shall have to begin now and send a group out looking for the Long family as soon as the ceremony is complete. For all three to be so late, with no warning, something unpleasant must have happened."

"You could say that again!" Startled cries echoed throughout the temple as the sound of roaring flames attracted everyone to the main door as spinning black and purple smoke rose and disappeared, causing another round of, this time, horrified gasps as they found the source of the dark voice standing within. It was none other than a cruelly smirking American Dragon. But what really horrified them was the respected colleague he had, batter and unconscious, in a Sphinx hair net.

"Jake Long! What is the meaning of this?" The high chairman demanded furiously, banging his hands down on the table. "What have you done to your grandfather? Explain yourself this instant!"

"You want an explanation?" 'Jake's' voice was so low and filled with malice that it sent shivers down the spines of everyone listening. Though, the creep factor still didn't quite manage to hide the slightly off accent. It didn't sound any more right coming from the American Dragon than the dark tones. "Simply put, I'm fed up with all of you, of being a selfless hero, of never getting the respect I deserve. I want freedom from this stupid Order. I want power, I want glory. Dragons have the sufficient power to rule the world and that's just what I'm going to do. All I need to do first is get the lot of you out of my way. Starting with this weak old man!"

Every dragon screamed in horror and grief as 'the American Dragon' dropped the net only to raise his sharp claws and plunge them down. Right through Loa Shi's throat.

"No." The chairman whispered, his already pale skin turning whiter than a ghost. He could not believe what he was seeing. It was impossible. But yet, there was the gory proof laying still before them, never to rise again.

Like the rest of his kind, he was frozen in place, horror, sadness, betrayal and rage pouring through all of their brains as they fought against accepting this reality. That one of their own had actually slaughtered his own grandfather right in front of them. And the American Dragon of all dragons!

No, he refused to believe it. He knew Jake Long's history and personality very well. The boy was a handful, of that there was no question, but his love and loyalty to Loa Shi was unquestionable. On top of that, Jake had had many opportunities to see the ruling figures of the Dragon Order slain and had risked his own, sometimes powerless, life to save them.

The accent he'd noticed hidden behind the malice before only proved it. This creature was not Jake Long.

"YOU ARE-"

"You're murderer!" The imposter interrupted with a snarl, already throwing an orb right at the Council. The Chairman only had enough time to widen his eyes in pure terror before the orb hit the table and exploded.

"AAAARRRGGGGHHHHHHH!" The entire temple shook at the force of the explosion, coupled with countless screams. The light of the blast was even sufficient to scare countless people walking through the city. Every dragon was struck by the blast, burned and tossed around like ragdolls. However, the Dragon High Council never saw any of it. All of them, plus the additional twenty three dragons in line to become their successors, were obliterated in an instant.

...

Gohan paled chalk white as he watched on. His breathing was strangled at best and his body was shaking worse than the building had. Pain and despair ran wild through his system as he watched the smoke circle around the place, blanketing all of the still breathing dragons. More than half of them would be hospitalised for weeks, some of them probably wouldn't make it even if they got attention now. Others were falling into shock, simply laying on the ground, staring blankly at the far side of the temple. Where the bomb had gone off and utterly destroyed everything. Including far too many lives.

"I can't believe this." His voice came out so soft and weak that even he could barely hear it. Guilt wracked him hard as the smoke began to clear, making the full extent of the damage even more noticeable. He could have stopped this. He was just about to approach the dragons when he saw the arrival of who he was sure was Jake and for a moment, malevolent voice aside, he was sure that whatever had happened was or would be resolved. He was so sure that Jake had escaped, even if it was strange that his grandfather was still in a net. It was a way to carry an unconscious man and he may just not have wanted to waste time getting him out of it while escaping from the Dark Dragon.

It wasn't until 'Jake' started talking that he realised his mistake and too stunned by what he was saying, he failed to notice what his senses were trying to tell him until a split second before a deadly claw left Loa Shi in a pool of blood.

The fiery energy signature of the dragons didn't travel all the way through this being. It was merely a very thin cloak over a very different aura. This creature, however it had gained its shape and aura veil, was not Jake. He wasn't even a dragon.

And with the orb being thrown a split second later, he never had a chance to get over registering the information before the bomb went off.

All those lives could have been saved if he had paid attention to his powers instead of his eyes.

"Man, what a rush." Gohan bristled as the dark laugh met his ears, the smoke finally clearing enough to see the imposter. 'Jake' was completely unscathed, looking around him with cruelly and gleefully as he laughed louder and louder. "Now that did the trick. One second and every single threat is gone in an instant."

"You..." A man growled weakly. However, despite how weak it was and from how far away, Gohan could still hear the venom and animalistic rage dripping from every letter. "I will rip your head off for this."

"Go ahead and try." 'Jake' sneered right back, his claws poised for another deadly slash. "You can be the next dragon to die. An added example to all who try to get it my way!"

That was it! Before anyone could register what had happen, a white aura burst to life, a beacon through the black night, and surged right at the imposter. The mask of confidence and malice instantly shattered to real pure terror a split second before Gohan ploughed into him and took him straight into the sky.

How dare this good for nothing lowlife kill so many good and decent people! How dare he do it wearing the face of an innocent teenager! How dare he cause all this suffering! Guilt, horror, grief, it was all gone now. All Gohan could feel was rage. The rage he'd felt when he learned of his father's fate. The kind that demanded he give in to his Saiyan instincts and make this piece of scum suffer.

"CHANG!" The imposter screamed like a distraught pig, all signs of his old act gone and revealing his very different accent as he struggled in vain. "CHANG! HELP ME!"

"You don't deserve help!" Gohan spat, whipping up his knee and releasing another screech from the killer. "You deserve a painful death!"

"But-but you're the Super Saiyan!" His victim spluttered desperately. "A hero. Heroes don't kill."

"I'm part _Saiyan_ and a Z Fighter." Gohan snarled, swinging around the dragon body and planting his fist right into the dragon's gut, eliciting another agonised, but soundless scream. "I've killed before. And you've pissed me off enough to do it again imposter."

"B...b...but." The killer gasped, barely making it above a whisper as he watched on more afraid than he'd ever been in his entire life as Gohan brought a hand up to his draconic mouth and gathered golden energy in his palm. He was done for. Gohan's rage and loathing had reached its peak. Either the blast would take off the fake dragon's head or go down his throat and destroy his entire body from the inside out. Either worked for Gohan right now.

However, much to his disappointment, a flash of purple and a flicker across his senses force him to spin around and shoot his beam up to counter the one coming down at him.

"You must be Chang. The Dark Dragon's little housemaid." Gohan spat spitefully, almost making Chang shiver despite her indignation at his words. "Good. that means I can wipe out two people responsible for this!" With that, a gold energy ball the size of a wrecking ball appeared in his hand and was thrown right at her. If it were just Chang, she would have been obliterated in an instant. Fortunately for her, Dark Dragon had a greater connection than to just what she saw.

With a flash of dark energy much like lightning shooting from her eyes, the ball was destroyed and knocked all three in the sky back and away from each other with a shockwave. Grunting, Gohan pulled himself to an almost instant stop and surged right back at both of them, but it was too little too late. Before he could even gather any power into his next ki blast, black and purple smoke appeared and consumed both of them. By the time he kicked through the cloud surrounding the imposter and fired a blast at the other, both of them were gone.

"NO!" Throwing his head back, he let out a roar that would have made his Oozaru form proud. His targets were gone. He could do nothing to them and his normally suppressed instincts were running through him like wildfire, demanding that he cause pain and destruction. Without a target his lingering morals could accept anywhere in sight, he let out another animalistic roar and unleashed his power into the sky, wave after immense wave, the power putting on an amazing light show for everyone miles around.

...

"Heh, that child is rather impressive." Dark Dragon mused as his servants appeared beside him, Bananas whimpering in torturous pain and nursing his arm on the ground. The blows that landed on his body were nothing in comparison to the simple grip the Super Saiyan had placed on his arm. It was mangled.

"And appears to be under the influence of the smoke." Chang said, her form flickering with nervousness. "He knows the truth too. With that much power and rage directed squarely at us-"

"I wouldn't worry too much." Dark Dragon stated dismissively as he watched the boy release more and more power. "His unusual physiology may have been susceptible to the fog, but with no magic of his own to feed the spell, the affects can never be long lasting. He will calm soon. As for knowing the truth, that is an irritation, but not a dangerous one. He will never be able to convince the Dragon Order now. They will never see past the face that did this. This mission is a success."

"Then perhaps it would be best to leave." Chang advised, still watching the teen hero going nuts. "If we are discovered here, that could back the boy's claims if he tries to convince the dragons of Jake Long's innocence and if he finds us, he may be dangerous even to you master."

"I suppose that you are correct." Dark Dragon conceded, already preparing the puff of teleporting smoke. "Besides, we probably should have Bananas' injuries treated soon."

"...Bangers." Was all the monkey turned dragon could force out as they were once again consumed by smoke. The plan was a success, the damage was done. It would take a miracle to stop them now and with the one person in all of Hong Kong still capable of doing it busy attacking clouds and wind patterns, they didn't have anything to worry about.

* * *

**AN:** Bet that result wasn't expected. Bet most people thought that the dragons would be saved. Sorry, I believe in realism and realism dictates that even the greatest of heroes fail and fall once in a while. Sometimes, the bad guys win. Sometimes they have to win.

Oh, and thanks for the reviews from the last two chapters guys. Didn't get many, but they still made my day. I'm glad you're still enjoying the story.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

If Jake's scales weren't already as red as they could get, they would be by now. His job was turning out to be infuriating.

Jake's senses far exceeded those of the average human, but even they were proving near useless in search of the thief. His bird's eye view was both an advantage and a disadvantage, with arches and buildings providing far too many blocked areas he had to waste time swooping around to check out and his hearing was absolutely useless at his height, especially in crowded town streets enshrouded in panic.

It was only his sense of smell that gave him any clue at all. Like all reptiles, his sense of smell was easily his strongest sense, though he wasn't very well trained in its use. He'd always complained and forced his Gramps to hold off on what he'd decreed his most disgusting ability ever since the first day of training with it. Loa Shi had brought in the most putrid smells imaginable to practice with and Jake couldn't even handle them with his human senses, much less his dragon ones.

_And Gramps just had to be right when he said that avoidance would come back to bite me._ Jake thought irritably. He was kicking himself for it now and with good reason. He'd managed to use the thief's scent to determine that he'd fled the castle, but after that it started mixing with other scents before disappearing into them completely. He was left only with a general direction with plenty of places to hide.

"I don't have time for this!" Losing it, he swooped down low, through the upper stories of the buildings, looping up and over bridges wildly. He ignored the growing strain on his wing and back muscles completely, only going faster and faster. "RED X! GET OUT HERE NOW!"

He never stopped for a response. He simply breathed a stream of fire safely into the air and moved on to the next street. He repeated the process again and again, ignoring the startled and scared towns people. He couldn't care if he made them a little afraid, this was the only way. Red X had been evading anthromorphic creatures for who knew how long and that included those with senses equal to or even greater than his own. He'd never find him in time, so he could only hope that Red X would come to him.

"RED X!" He screeched again, swallowing as his throat started growing hoarse. He was going on ten minutes of screaming by that point and it wasn't only his throat that was giving out on him. His speed had slowed significantly as his back screamed at him almost as much as he'd screamed for the thief. It was only a few seconds later that he was forced to stop flapping his wings, barely able to withstand simply extending them so that he could glide on the wind, slowly losing altitude. "I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR-AAHH!"

Right as he banked around another street corner, a fwick sound met his ears right before he was struck in the back. Turning his head with a panicked glare, he just managed to determine that it was a strange, sticky substance in the form of a red X as its sides continued on until it had wrapped around his entire torso, binding both his arms and wings to his body and sending him plummeting into the ground, crying out as he skidded and rolled along the road.

_Dammit!_ Growling in both rage and at the pain at landing and coming to a stop on his right wing, he acted completely on instinct as a chuckling shadow landed right before him and blew a flamethrower right at the figure.

Fortunately for him, his reflexes proved superior, for within an instant, the chuckling had stopped and the guy had leapt safely into the air. Performing a midair flip, he quickly brought the flame to an end a second later, for with another fwick, another, albeit smaller, red x came down and wrapped itself right around Jake's long jaw, clamping it shut.

"Aww, why'd you have to go and do that? We can't even talk now?" Red X asked, feigning disappointment before chuckling amusedly again as he landed nimbly on Jake's back. Jake just growled and shook himself wildly in response until Red X took the message and jumped off him, chuckling as he crouched down in front of the dragon and blatantly ignoring the townspeople calling for the guards all around them. "My apologies for the dramatic attainment of your attention, but for future reference, when you're trying to get someone without the gift of flight to come to you, you might want to consider moving at less than eighty miles per hour. And some hero, what if it wasn't me in front of you?" He added, waving his finger around like a reprimanding father. "With your eyes closed, you could have just barbequed a defenceless little child."

Outwardly, Jake simply glared at the master thief. He wouldn't let Red X know that he was getting to him. However, internally, he was kicking himself for his utter lack of control. The speed lecture he could push aside, he was in a hurry and had no clue where Red X was. He'd seen the guy teleport quickly and frequently through the air at the castle, who says he couldn't do it over long ranges? The fire breathing however...well, it was hard to ignore when a mailbox down the street was currently blazing. It was a stupid, instinctive move that could have hurt and killed who knew how many. Fire was wild and its users had to maintain strict care and focus in its use or it got completely out of control. He knew all this, how could he be so stupid?

"Now, what would bring someone like you down here after me at a time like this?" Red X mused, tilting his head contemplatively as another BOOM drew everyone's attention back to the castle. Looking back at himself, even Red X felt a bit troubled by the sight of it.

It had definitely seen better days. Missing chunks and cracks covered its previously magnificent walls and towers. It had been the pride of the kingdom, a beautiful monument that opened its doors to all, promising protection on the rare even that it was needed and kindness and assistance to anyone struggling with any kind of problem. Now, if the battle didn't end soon, more than half of it could fall apart completely.

Red X was almost as troubled by it as Jake was. Though he made a point of looking out for number one above all others, that didn't mean that he didn't care and respect those who looked out for others. In all honesty, he was quite proud of this Kingdom. If it wasn't for the thrill of thievery, fun of being chased and challenge of passing through security, he probably would have really liked the idea of settling down and living the life of a citizen there. It wasn't like thievery could get him anywhere in terms of riches in this world anyway.

"Why haven't the guards stopped this yet?"

"It'll tear the castle apart!"

"I heard it's the Magician himself attacking the castle."

"Lord Donald? Impossible!"

"He'd never turn on the King! Why would he do this?"

His heart hammering in his chest as he watched the castle shake again, Jake thrashed against his restraints. He had to get back. Danny couldn't handle this alone, he had to convince Red X to come with him, to calm Donald down. But first, he had to get _free _and his strength simply didn't cut it!

_Concentrate!_ He ordered, calming his body and closing his eyes. If physical strength was useless and these X bands could take on different sizes, then he only had one other option. Within seconds, sparks were dancing all over his form. _Let your aura rise and ignite, then focus on keeping the flames lit._

A sudden flash and cackling sound snapped Red X' attention back to the dragon before him, only take a stunned step back as the people around them screamed for water. There, where the dragon had laid only a moment ago, was a Chinese boy with fire dancing over every inch of his body and completely unharmed by it, rising to his feet. The only signs of what had been there the last time he'd looked was a similar hair style and the melting remains of the X shaped restraints clattering on the ground around the boy's feet.

"Now there's an interesting trick." He commented, shaking himself out of it as he looked over the boy's form. Not even Jake's clothes were so much as singed. "I don't know what's more surprising. The fact that you can bathe in fire or that you can turn into a human."

"My breed are born in human form." Jake stated, waving the whole thing off as the flames disappeared, calming the crowd into a stunned silence. "I need you to come with me."

"Do you know how many times I've heard things along those lines?" Red X asked, a tinge of amusement entering his voice. "What makes you think that I'll go anywhere with you?"

"I don't have time for games!" Jake snapped, waving his hand furiously as the booms and screams continued to travel down from the castle. "Everyone up there will die if you don't come with me! Donald's powers are fuelled by rage and grow forever stronger and you made him mad! We need you to resolve whatever you did to infuriate him."

"By doing the very thing that made him mad at me in the first place and risk him pounding me into a pancake?" Red X retorted calmly, crossing his arms. "Sorry, but I think I'll pass."

"WHAT?" Jake shouted, balling his fists and giving Red X such a heated glare that he might as well of had real fire in his eyes. "You'd let a rage monster with a variety of dangerous powers go nuts just to save your own hide?"

"Hey, I was an undefeated thief back in my own world, before I tried to take an interdimensional horn anyway. And thieves always look out for number one."

What he said was bad enough, but the whole way through it, his body, his tone, it all wreaked of relaxation and a complete lack of care. How could he be so heartless! He helped create the problem and he couldn't even be bothered to try and clean up the mess before people and places were wiped off the map?

"You self serving JERK!" The flash of fire was all the warning anyone got before a red, reptile surged right at the black clad thief.

It was his reflexes alone that allowed Red X to evade the claw wrenching out of the fire for his chest, sending him leaping into a back flip as Jake followed after him with a fast left hook, only just missing Red X' shoulder and grazing his lower leg as he pulled away.

Jake only seemed to grow more frustrated as his strikes missed and quickly unleashed chop after punch after tail swipe, forcing Red X into an almost entirely defensive position. He had no time to prepare the weapons in his gloves and reaching for his belt only opened him for a blow to the head that could easily knock him out. On top of that, on the rare occasion that he managed to find the time and opening to lash out himself, his punches and kicks barely made the dragon flinch.

_He's too heavily armoured for mundane methods._ Red X surmised as he planted a swift kick right onto Jake's chest only for Jake to dislodge it and sent him back with a simple step forward. _Then there's this strength!_ A grunt actually did leave his mouth as Jake suddenly unleashed his first kick, catching Red X off guard and forcing him to block with crossed arms. The result was Red X flew back and crashed into a steer anthro. In his lithe form, he held strength that could take on even the strongest Olympic gold medallist, but even that paled in comparison to the raw muscle of a dragon. Blocking was a no go here, he had to either deflect or avoid each attack completely. _Which would be a lot easier if he wasn't also an advanced martial artist!_ He added as he aerial flipped over Jake's slash only to barely spring off his tail before being ensnared.

Lashing out with his tail again to keep Red X off balance as he turned, Jake pressed on, using the momentum of his spin to increase the speed of his punch, only just missing Red X' mask by a hair's width before forcing Red X to dive away from a snap kick and a back fist in turn.

Taking the only gap he was going to get, he let his body hit the ground less than perfectly, putting all his focus into his gloves' arsenal. By the time his rough roll had him facing the assaulting dragon again, he raised his palm and fired an adhesive at point blank range, catching the flinching dragon off guard and knocking him down to the ground, sticking him in place.

"Now that was a rush." Red X grinned as he rose to his feet, wiping the dust off his suit. "Kid, you're as fun to play with as the mouse king, but this is a waste of time. You should be saving your strength for where it's really needed."

"You're where it's needed!" Jake roared as flames consumed him. The adhesive quickly bubbled away, no more than a goop stain on the street, leaving Jake free to go on the attack all over again.

An open palm was easily deflected by Red X before the two fell into a dance of punches and kicks all over again. Though, Red X had to admit to himself that Jake had him off guard once again. Though the armour and strength of the dragon was gone, Jake's fighting style had done a complete one eighty, relying heavily on his slimmer, faster build. A sweep kick from the thief was quickly dodged with a leap and flip back before retaliated with a slide tackle, which quickly turned into a series of kicks when Jake altered his position and used the momentum to spin in his back when Red X sidestepped him.

"Now what do you think beating me up will accomplish?" Red X asked as he dropped and axe kick only for Jake to catch it and use his own momentum to bring him down head first. Unfortunately for Jake, he quickly responded by wrapping his foot and ankle around Jake's wrist and throwing his hands out before him. The result was that he merely flipped to his feet while Jake was ripped off the ground and followed the foot all the way around before hitting his back against the ground again with a scream. "The end result of this is that neither of us would have it in us to be of any use at the castle."

Even the crowd watching fearfully around them murmured in agreement, but Jake didn't listen to any of them. This was all he had. "Even Danny couldn't stop the Duck of Doom, so what use would I be up there?" He spat, making Red X gasp and jump away as his aura glowed all over him, threatening flames. "I don't have his powers and none of mine are of any use against the villain you helped make. Bringing you back and making you resolve whatever you did to anger him is the only way I can really help in this fight."

"You seriously believe that Phantom can do any more than you?" Red X asked amusedly, shaking his head. "I watched you guys a bit. Yes, his particular abilities could distract and hold off the duck for a while, but at the end of it, they were only about as affective as yours. Why do you talk like he's superior to you?"

"Because he's the better hero." Jake responded, already on his feet and tense for the next fight. "He's more powerful, he's taken down the tougher foes, he's-"

"Good with his powers, I'll give you that." Red X interrupted, waving the whole thing off. "But like I said, I watched some of your fight with ducky boy. He relies solely on his powers. He doesn't move like a fighter, doesn't hold himself like one. You're almost as good at combat as I am and only use your powers to enhance what you can do naturally. He may have more power, but you're the one I respect in battle most. You're at least as good at the hero thing as he is."

"Are you...giving me a pep talk?" Jake frowned, his form loosening as he stared on with bewilderment. "Why?"

"Because I'm feeling generous." Red X shrugged as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Besides, I needed to throw you off a little so you'll stop attacking and listen. Your duck was fuming before he saw me and any anger he had towards me was simply for being a thief in the castle. And maybe a little for taunting him." He added uncaringly. "If I go back, I'll only be repeating what made him mad at me in the first place."

"Something had him furious before he found you?" Jake frowned dejectedly, biting his lip at the implications. That was it then. He had no way of finding out why Donald was so furious, which meant they had no way to calm him. And if that was the case, then what could they do? Fight him until he became strong enough to decimate everything? "What do we do now?" He asked miserably. He was desperate for an answer.

Unfortunately, all he got was startled cries from the people around him. Looking up, his heart sank even more as he found that Red X had disappeared.

"Yeah. That makes sense. A master thief would know how to use a moment." He sighed, his whole form sagging defeatedly. This was a lost cause. "What can I possibly do now?"

"Plenty Jake." Whipping his head up as a family, happy voice, Jake watched in startled confusion as Goofy made his way through the crowd, looking around at them all as his men followed him. "People, please vacate the area. We cannot guarantee safety this close to the castle. My men will keep you safe, please follow them to safer ground."

"I would have thought that you'd be back at the castle by now." Jake commented he watched on. The crowd was quick to respond, yet still managed to keep some order to their rush.

"I want to go there, but the people of the Kingdom need me a lot more than the King and Danny do." Goofy replied, though his face lost its optimism as he watched the castle with hard, worried eyes. "Besides, I wouldn't be enough to change the tide of that fight. But you might be." He added confidently.

"Me?" Jake gaped. He had a feeling that Goofy had taken a blow to the head with that one. "I can't stop the Duck of Doom!"

"Never said ya had to." Goofy replied confidently. "Donald's a hothead. You can use that to keep him off balance until those who can stop him show up. If the king doesn't, the queen will have Merlin or Yen Sid come and help, you can bet on that. I don't know what powers he has, never seen an evil Donald myself, but I doubt someone with your dense scales, fire power and strength would have much trouble or be under much risk distracting him. So long as you watch what ya doin."

"You have heard what the Duck of Doom's like right?" Jake asked, frowning hesitantly, more than a bit nervous.

"Yep. Magical communication works well and fast in this world." Goofy nodded.

"And you're still completely confident that I can do what it takes to keep him busy?"

"Hey, I think you might have it in you to knock im out." Goofy smiled confidently.

"Danny and I combined couldn't stop him!" Jake cried, his nerves only growing. That sounded like Goofy was simply underestimating Donald or far too optimistic.

"But did you fight like you or fight Danny's way?" Goofy asked, startling Jake with just how serious he got. "I was here for all of your time with Red X Jake, and even I could tell you're sufferin a inferiority complex. You shouldn't compare yourself to Phantom. I've seen you both fight and you're both great heroes in your own ways. Yes, Phantom has more powers than you, but he doesn't have your training. His shortcomings are your strengths and each of your strengths benefit different situations. You're as great as he is Jake. Now go and prove it to yourself."

Two pep talks in ten minutes and both of them coming from two of the most unlikely people in the world. And as he mulled over their words, their message continued to become more and more accepted, until he finally fully accepted that they were right. He'd only looked at power level, variety in abilities and who'd taken down the larger number of upper level villains. His friends had too. Neither he, nor they, had ever taken Jake's training into account, or Danny's lack thereof, or any of the other qualities each of them possessed. Everything had to be considered to determine how great a hero was and the truth of it was that Jake and Danny stood on the same platform. They got there in different ways, but what matters what that they did both reach that level. And he had only gone in with basic powers while fighting before, not a strategy. Maybe he could...he knew how to do this!

"You're right." He stated, bringing a big smile to Goofy's face as a smirk grew across his. The same confident, cocky one that hadn't graced his lips since going to China. "I know exactly how to stop the Duck of Doom. Thanks."

"No problem. Now, drink this and get in there." Happy as a dog could get, Goofy handed him a bottle containing a purplish-blue liquid and headed off merrily, back to lead his men. Giving it a wary looked, Jake examined every inch of the bottle before shrugging and bringing it to his lips. After all, Goofy was the one who gave it to him, how horrible could it be?

"Blllbb!" Well, it sure didn't taste great. In fact, it was barely in his mouth before Jake was fighting the urge to spit it out. Forcing himself to swallow, he let out a disgusted gag and forced his mouth full of saliva, trying to flush the taste out, only to gasp as the pain coursing all through his body, particularly his back, completely disappeared.

"What do you know? Magic medicine. Yet they still couldn't make it taste good." He couldn't help but add as he transformed into a dragon once more. "Still, at least flying isn't going to be a problem anymore." With that, he leapt into the sky and back toward the castle. He may not have gotten Red X to come along, but he was still going to end the issue that was the duck of Doom.

He was sure of it.

...

Jake wasn't the only one heading back to the castle. Despite what he said, Red X couldn't simply stay away, nor did he intend to after he realised just how hopeless the good guys were at that point. But now it was even more important to return to where this problem began.

For when he'd turned to the castle again after his fight with Jake, he saw it. A small flash of pink. Just like when he was being chased by Donald. The flash that led him right to the superhero machine. And now that he'd had time to think about it, he knew exactly what it was.

The sorceress' magic.

_Well look at that._ He smirked to himself as he jumped on his bike and floored it. It wasn't like anyone was out on the streets to get in his way anymore and blocking his entry from the castle was kind of pointless now. _I'm playing the hero again. Heh, I knew hanging around these people would cause me grief._

* * *

**AN:** Well, Jake's inferiority issue has been resolved. Good thing too, he'll have far to much to deal with when they get back as is. On another note, anyone catch the hint as to how Red X got to Disney Town? It was only a small, passing comment and an easily passed over one at that, so I'll understand if you didn't.


End file.
